[ltp] DVD drive read problems (A31 TP)

[Mendel Cooper]

I had read about laptop DVD drives not liking CDRs, but hadn't actually
experienced it until I got an A31 TP with a DVD-CDR/W drive in the
Ultrabay Plus.

The drive reads commercially manufactured DVDs with no problem, and
DVD movie playing (using Xine, Totem, Ogle, etc.) works fine under
Linux, with the appropriate libraries and drivers installed. The drive
even reads most commercial CDs all right. But, CDRs -- even ones
recorded by the same drive -- give frequent read errors, accompanied
by rattling and rumbling of the drive as it keeps resetting.

For about a week I tried installing FC5 using that drive. The installation
would abort every time when the actual package install was supposed to
begin. The error log said error reading hdc. Of course.

I even tried using an FC5 DVD-R, rather than the CDR set. The install
got a little further before quitting. Highly frustrating.

The final fix for the problem: I bought, on eBay for about $20, including
shipping, a CDROM read-only drive for the Ultrabay. That reads CDRs fine,
and the FC5 install went smoothly with it.

One of the incidental things I learned from that experience is that
Ultrabay 2000 devices (and their caddies) work in the Ultrabay Plus
(right side of computer), though not necessarily vice-versa. About the
only Ultrabay 2000 device that doesn't switch-hit is the battery.