Re: SONY DVD RW AW-G170A

On 4/20/07, Andrew Sackville-West <andrew@farwestbilliards.com> wrote:

On Fri, Apr 20, 2007 at 09:22:29PM +0100, Neil Sumner wrote:
> Hey thanks for the reply... wasn't expecting such swift help.
> Sorry but like the hopless newbie I am I am responding directly to your
> mail...
>
> Right, I tried 'goodbye microsoft' (Oh, I wish)
> this destroyed my HD and left me with no operating system so i just had to
> reinstall windows :)

:(

> (don't worry I took note of the losing data caveat)
>

:) phew.

> soo... errors
>
> 'goodbye microsoft' failed at 'installing the base system' with :-
>
> failure trying to run : chroot/target mount -t proc/proc
> the debootstrap program exited with an eror (return value 1)
> check /var/log/syslog (Dunno how to do this)

to check /var/log/syslog you would use something like

less /var/log/syslog

or

more /var/log/syslog

or

cat /var/log/syslog

note that you probably need to be root to do this.

> _____________________________________________________________
> The error from the debian DVD i downloaded last week (stable) was :-
>
> Detect andmount CD-ROM
> No common CD-ROM drive was detected
> you may need to load additional CD-ROM drivers from a driver floppy
> ______________________________________________________________
>
> Yes I did get similar errors from the other *nix I tried which were iirc
>
> SuSE, Mandriva, Fedora, Gentoo

okay. next step *I* would take would be to borrow a dvd drive and try
that, but I suspect, based on the below, that it won't work.

>
> others were damn small linux which I tried to put on a USB, it gave me a
> command line at least

well that's something. It is possible to install debian from damn
small linux. check their site for details or check the debian install
manual for information on using debootstrap, which should work from
DSL as well.

> and Ubuntu which was the live CD I tried. Ubuntu had problems with the
> motherboard, my motherboard was listed as having problems on their forums.
> No errors from ubuntu about the DVD/CD just something to do with failing to
> address memory.

that's not promising. Can you point us the the listed problems with
that mobo? IMO, if it won't run ubuntu then it probably won't run
debian.

>
> As for specific error messages, yes pretty hard they go by too quickly
>
> Would be nice to try to establish if this is DVD or mobo at least.... but I
> am thinking I will probably throw 10 quid at a DVD ROM in any case, it might
> solve it but if it doesn't it isn't a calamity.
>

well, yeah, that would help with process of elimination thing. I
recommend, as well, that instead of a dvd drive, get a cheap cd drive
and download and burn the netinstall disk. This will get you a smaller
iso *and* take you back to more likely supported hardware.

.02

A

> Thanks for the time
>
> Neil
>
>
> On 4/20/07, Andrew Sackville-West <andrew@farwestbilliards.com> wrote:
> >
> >On Fri, Apr 20, 2007 at 05:45:30PM +0100, Neil Sumner wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >
> >Hi
> >
> >> I cannot boot with this drive. It is IDE/atapi and it works fine with
> >> windows. Despite its inexpensive price it was reasonably 'exotic' 6
> >> months
> >> ago as it has an 18x write speed, it works fine with windows
> >>
> >> OK, this problem has occured with EVERY version of Linux I have tried.
> >> The
> >> first bit of the startup is OK, but it refuses to mount the DVD drive;
> >> *nix
> >> all tell me that it must be an 'old' kind of drive' and that I should
> >> find a
> >> module or make a boot floppy.
> >
> >can you give us more details on this? specific messages would be best
> >(hard to do I know, digital photos posted somewhere might work...)
> >
> >>
> >> well, it isn't an old drive. I cant make a boot floppy as I do not have
> >> (a)
> >> a floppy drive (b) a working linux system.
> >
> >chicken and egg.
> >
> >>
> >> The Debian help files tell me that all IDE DVD drives 'should' be fine.
> >> Well
> >> this one isn't and I cant find a module for it.
> >>
> >> Help, I want Debian ! :)
> >
> >www.goodbye-microsoft.com
> >
> >might be in order here.
> >
> >>
> >> I tried waiting 6 months for it to get fixed but it has not happened.
> >
> >So, you claim no linux version will mount the cd after booting. I
> >wonder if this isn't in fact a mobo issue or bios issue and not drive
> >issue. There are now motherboards that will recognise an ide optical
> >drive, but won't properly boot from them.
> >
> >Have you tried a live-cd and if so, what were the results?
> >
> >A
> >
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