[CentOS] DVD reader: Hardware problem or OS glitch?

[Lanny Marcus]

On 29 April 2008, Alan Bartlett ajb.stxsl at googlemail.com wrote
<snip>
> 
> ______________________________________________________________________
> 2008/4/29 Lanny Marcus <lannyma at gmail.com>:
> 
> > [root at dell1602 ~]# grep ^hdc /var/log/dmesg
> > hdc: DV-516D, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
> > hdc: ATAPI 50X DVD-ROM drive, 256kB Cache, UDMA(100)
> > [root at dell1602 ~]#
> 
> 
> Good(-ish). The optical device is there but it's an old combo CD/DVD-ROM
> drive.
> 
> 
> > >Then looked at the symbolic links? ls -l /dev/ | grep hdc
> >
> > [root at dell1602 ~]# ls -l /dev/ | grep hdc
> > lrwxrwxrwx 1 root  root           3 Apr 29 12:30 cdrom-hdc -> hdc
> > lrwxrwxrwx 1 root  root           3 Apr 29 12:30 dvd -> hdc
> > lrwxrwxrwx 1 root  root           3 Apr 29 12:30 dvd-hdc -> hdc
> > brw------- 1 lanny disk    22,    0 Apr 29 12:30 hdc
> > [root at dell1602 ~]#
> 
> 
> Good. That's o.k. also.
> 
> 
> >
> > I just updated the hal rpm on the box with the problem and I did a
> > restart of the box after that.
> >
> > hald (pid 2069) is running...
> 
> 
> Good, again.
> 
> 
> > >I don't know if this will be any use -
> > >http://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks/HAL
> >
> > Alan: I will check that out! Thanks much! Lanny
> >
> >
> Did I see that you are still running a very out of date kernel? Of the
> 2.6.18-8.m.n series? Any particular reason?

We didn't have ADSL before and I  have been selectively updating  rpms. That box is now running 
kernel 2.6.18-53.1.14.el5   :-)

The problem still exists, after the kernel update, and as someone else suggested, I will probably post on the GNOME list
for any ideas someone there might have. Neither of the GNOME modules mentioned in the TipsAndTricks/HAL 
article that you mentioned above are available for update: (a) gnome-volume-manager and (b) gnome-mount

When I updated the kernel, I also updated hwdata and kudzu.

If we knew what is causing this to happen, there could be a fix, but it remains a mystery.

Thanks much! Lanny