[lug] CD install failures

[qqq1one @yahoo.com]

Well I seem to have a CDROM drive that is going bad.  I replaced my 2 year old IDE CD-R unit with
a new IDE CD-RW unit and I have not experienced any of the trouble I mentioned below.  It seems
that every time I've had a major problem with Linux it has turned out to really be a problem with
the hardware.

> I've been experiencing frequent install failures with
> Red Hat from CD and also with KRUD from CD.  Most
> recently with 7.2, but I've had the same problems with
> earlier RH and KRUD distributions as well.  If I go
> back as far as 6.1 I don't have any problem.
> 
> Basically with the newer distributions either I see
> the "Loading vmlinuz...." line and then the screen
> goes blank and the system freezes, or it gets further,
> prints out the following errors and then freezes:
> 
>   RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
>   invalid compressed format (err=1)Freeing initrd
> memory: 2046k freed
>   EXT2-fs: unable to read superblock
>   cramfs: wrong magic
>   isofs_read_super: bread failed, dev=09:02,
> iso_blknum=16, block=32
>   Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 09:02
> 
> I end up having to cycle power and make several more
> attempts before I finally get an install that
> succeeds.  I should mention that I am using an IDE
> CDROM manufactured around 1999 and that it seems to
> handle other 700MB CDs just fine.
> 
> I saw an article at
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/22533.html
> where someone else explained they have had a similar
> problem:
> 
> "First off, I couldn't get the installation CD to run.
> I re-booted about eight times, but it just spun up and
> died, and went to the next boot device. On the Red Hat
> support site I found an article explaining that when a
> CD-ROM is connected to an IDE controller (just like
> mine), the program has 'problems'."
> 
> I wasn't able to find the RH support article
> mentioned.  Does anyone have insight as to what the
> problem might be?  It's not a showstopper since it
> eventually works, but it is annoying and time
> consuming every time I do an install.


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