Bug 16691 – Install boots but fails to mount Plextor PX-320A

• Product: Gentoo Release Media
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Description Christopher Bolin 2003-03-02 16:55:28 UTC]

It probably isn't relevant, but I am able to install Redhat Phoebe beta 2, 
WinXP, Mandrake 9.0 on this machine. I've read the install guide and the forums 
and I either don't see the same problem mentioned - or I'm missing something. 

After booting from the CD, type GENTOO at the prompt - perform keymap 
selection - install fails at Mounting the CD 

mount: Mounting /newroot/dev/cdroms/cdrom0 on /newroot/mnt/cdrom failed: Not a 
directory ----- CD not found umount: /newroot: Device or resource busy 

The CDROM drive is correctly identified as Plextor PlexCombo PX-320A when 
booting though... 

It is a relatively new drive, and as I mentioned it does work with other 
distros and OSes. It is also failing with Mandrake 9.1RC builds in the same 
way - but I can still install Mandrake 9.0 correctly. 

Is there any way to get around this so I can test/play with Gentoo? 

Here are my system specs in case they are needed: 

Shuttle SB51g - BIOS 38 
Intel i845G multithreading chipset (supporting Pentium 4 400/533MHz FSB 
processors) 
Realtek 10/100MBs LAN 
5.1 channel AC97 audio with SPDIF in/out 
Three IEEE1394 (Firewire) ports 
Four USB 2.0 ports 
Two serial ports 
Two UDMA 100/133 IDE connectors 
Pentium 4 2.rGHz (533MHz) processor 
1GB CAS2 Corsair XMS3500 
Western Digital Caviar 120GB 8MB Cache 
Creative Labs GeForce 3 Ti500 graphics card 
Plextor PlexCombo PX-320A 20/10/40-12A CDRW-DVD player 
USB keyboard and Mouse

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. burn 1.4 RC 2 or 3
2. Boot from LiveCD
3. Choose keymap and CD will not mount

Actual Results:  
cannot install


If someone can give me params to try or tips to get around this I would love to 
test Gentoo.

[Comment 1 Bob Johnson (RETIRED) 2003-03-12 16:07:50 UTC]

im trying to find some info about this.. This is just a plain
atapi ide cdrom correct? shouldnt be a problem
for gentoo or latest mandrake. 

[Comment 2 Christopher Bolin 2003-03-12 19:51:31 UTC]

Yes, plain old ATAPI/IDE interface.  More info:

To verify that it is not cables, bios or interaction with other hardware I took 
the Plextor CD-R PX-320A out of my Shuttle machine (see specs above) and put it 
into my:
 
 EPOX 8KHA+
 http://www.epox.com/html/motherboard.asp?product=EP-8KHAplus&lang=1
 AMD 2600+ Athlon XP
 266MHz Max FSB - 756MB DDR2400 XMS
 VIA Apollo KT266A Chipset
 2 75GB IBM 7200rmp
 
You can see this is a different chipset entirely, different CPU, different HD 
controller, different cable and power supply - Gentoo Install fails exactly the same way.

I then when to http://www.plextor.com/english/support/downloads/firm_320.html 
and grabbed the latest firmware 1.05 - after updating the bios the install 
still fails.

So then I ran the Plextor diagnostics utility - and it confirmed that the drive 
is working correctly.

Given this hardware swapping exercise - I don't believe:

- the drive is defective, even a firmware update did nothing
- there are resource (PCI, DMA or otherwise) conflicts as it fails in a 
completely different machine
-  it will install Mandrake 9.0, all versions of Redhat and WinXP correctly

No one is responding to this report so I'm giving up on Gentoo testing  for 
now - As you can see above, I've done everything I can think of and reported it 
all.  It just doesn't work.

My other machines are running Gentoo well and I really want to use my PLEXTOR 
CD-R PX-320A CDR/CDRW/DVD player on this machine.

[Comment 3 Bob Johnson (RETIRED) 2003-03-14 21:52:42 UTC]

sorry, this has not been dropped.
Im just having trouble finding info ,fix, anything
If you get in a testing mood, latest livecd @
www.gentoo.org/~livewire has 2 kernels.
the normal xfs-sources, then by typing "smp" 
at the prompt youll get 2.4.21_pre5 with all latest bk patchsets.
Might let us know if its a 2.4.20 kernel issue... (which im kind of doubing)

[Comment 4 Bob Johnson (RETIRED) 2003-04-23 21:34:54 UTC]

Have you ran -rc4 on this box yet?

[Comment 5 Daniel Drake (RETIRED) 2004-10-09 18:43:47 UTC]

Please reopen if issue still exists with newest livecds

[Comment 6 Chris Gianelloni (RETIRED) 2005-03-25 11:24:21 UTC]

Moving these so we can remove the "Install CD" component from "Gentoo Linux".

I apologize to everyone for this spam, but according to the bugzilla developers,
this is the only reasonable way to do this.