Mandrake has released a page on the LG drive problem detailing how to get an updated firmware for the cdrom drives. Mandrake also has information on how to recover a damaged drive caused by installing Mandrake 9.2. The link to the Mandrake page is http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/lgerrata.php3

This happened to me with my 32x LG drive. The unit died. No contact with it whatsoever, CD inside, panic in my head.

Luckilly the fix (info posted od mandrake's site) works perfectly. Just make sure you follow the directions exactly. Including changing jumpers while the PC is actually on.
Also, ignore the final message after the fix is complete. It says something to the effect that it couldn't fix the drive ut the drive IS fixed and now everything works fine.

Btw. I have applied those frimware pathces from LG to my other LG drives.
I like them, they are pretty inexpensive and good workhorses.

Oh, and the fault wasn;t Mandrake's of course.

i guess my LG DVD/RW will work right? see the photo please..
http://hercules.jeeran.com/LG.JPG

I have a ATAPI 32X CD-ROM. Will it effect my drive???

why does it do that, then agin i use an external drive with mandrake 9.2

sorry CD/RW, are DVD/RW compatable with linux mandrake 9.2 i cant find the softweare anyware

HUH?

Well. Sigh.

I encountered this problem today installing 9.2 with a HLDS GCR-8481B and sure enough it died. I tried to get the Firmware reflash file off of the Dell site and unfortunatly it is not compatible w/a Dell Poweredge server. I'm waiting for a responce from Dell's Tech support to see if there is a file that is compatable w/this server. Go figure. Sniffle. I had no idea and I've probably passed over this thread a million times.

Tammy

Switch to Fedora please -- Mandrake for kids....

i think it's just the installer that does that, not the installed distribution, but
i'm not sure about that.
anyway, i'm sure mandrake was trying to figure out the best way to
detect what kind of drives were in the computer, and thought it would
be safest to flush the buffers of the drive before running detect commands.
And they see this command in the ATAPI Specs.
Flush Drive Buffers-XXX address whatever.

Unfortunately LG a while back says, "Hey, nobody uses that flush buffer
command. Let's use it to update our firmware." "Yea. Great Idea!"

It's like that redneck joke.
A guy was riding with a friend in his truck, and they came up on a redlight.
They didn't even slow down, and just flew through the light at 60 miles
an hour. The passenger says,"What the hell are you doing!? We could
have been killed." Driver says, "Don't worry about it. My uncle bob does
it all the time." The next light is red too. They fly through that too.
Passenger, "This is crazy. Don't do that!" Driver, "Don't worry. uncle bob
does it all the time." The next light is green. The truck goes skidding
to a stop, and just sits there at the green light. The passenger says,
"What are you doing? The light is green." The driver replies, "Uncle
Bob might be coming."

Even though the guy at Dell's tech support thinks the reflash should work on my poweredge it reads the floppy drive for a split second and then does nothing. So.

I have an HL Data Storage GCR-8481B and since I know that some drives are exactly the same, made by the same initial company just stamped w/different brand names I looked up the LG drives that had the same prob on their website and, sure enough, found one w/the same ending number (8481B). Figuring that it is exactly the same and realizing that things couldn't get much worse, I downloaded their reflash file.

Since my other Dell was just repartitioned w/out an ounce of an OS (the drive died after I custom partitioned it and while it was looking for available packages) I made an XP boot floppy which in turn gave me a c:\

I made a temp file and copied the two reflash files over to it - XFERLG.exe and a Vsomethingsomething.lge file. When I ran XFERLG.exe I got the following error:

Error: LGE file not specified
Usage: XFERLG [LGE filename with no extension]

I'm confused. I read the README file and followed the simple instructions to a t. Supposedly there were no other configurations that had to be done. To me the LGE file was specified 'cause there was one in the temp directory that I was running the .exe file from. Lastly, the file exe file did have an extension, hence .exe. I'm a more of a Solaris/Linux girl and I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to the DOS command prompt so maybe I'm doing something wrong but I don't know what it could be. I would really like to fix this problem on my own instead of buying another CD-ROM drive. I would appreciate any and all ideas out there as I have no idea where to go from here.

Thanks!
Tammy

P.S. I realize this is more of a Windows issue but I'm hoping other Linux users out there have run into this specific problem and found a workaround for it.

Today I tried two different reflash files from two different places - Dell's HL Storage 8481B and the one from LG's site.

for Dell's file I went to a:\ and typed jvx jv3de108

for LG's I tried a:\xferv4 v4lglx48

both started a dos looking program that thought a minute and said something like CD-ROM device not installed. I know it is installed because I looked inside and made sure everything was hooked up and tightened. Not sure what to do now...I'd really hate to trash these two CD-ROM drives.

Okido,

So after temporarily destroying the LG drive (unrecognisably disguised as a Goldstar) I have fixed it (after 5 hours of hard work, I'm a newbie ... no?).

Now it seems the AOPEN drive I have used as a replacement during the install also has a problem now. Could this be related?

I am unable to find firmware on the AOPEN website ...

Any Idea's ...?

Kind regards,
Peter

I am with Rab22 on this isue, sorry to see so many people are learning the hard way about the word " CHEEP ". Just remember you get what you pay for.

You get what you pay for??

My company paid for fully-loaded Dell PowerEdge servers - hardly cheap.

Anyway if you have any useful, constructive and non-presumptuous tips or comments on this subject please post them because I know I'm not the only one still having issues w/this.


snort. ok i feel better now - sorry.