Fwd: CD/DVD drive problem

[Rashkae]

Winton Vandepeer wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 10:28 AM, Rashkae <ubuntu at tigershaunt.com> wrote:
>> Winton Vandepeer wrote:
>> em-with-my-Laptop-Lenovo-3000-N200-in-Linux/m-p/11571
>>>> --
>>>> Steve
>>> Many thanks ,
>>> Been there, no solution,
>>>
>>> The drive is the built in drive on the notebook, and has been replaced
>>> with a new one, same problem,
>>> the drive doesn't have any problems, (needs to exist to have problems
>>> :-)  ) just doesn't exist with dual boot.
>>>
>> What is most interesting about this story is that the CD-ROM stops
>> working even in Windows.  It's therefore not a Ubuntu problem per say.
>> The only thing that Ubuntu does that would in any way affect Windows is
>> install Grub.  Grub must at some point be probing the ide/ata devices,
>> and whatever signal is being sent to the CD-ROM during that process
>> permanently disables it until the next hard boot.  Very shitty of Lenovo
>> not to investigate and fix this obvious defect, but at least the probe
>> is not causing the drive to erase it's ROM, effectively bricking the
>> device (hello Lite-On.)
>>
> 
>   Since the notebook probably only has 1 HD, that will always be
>> drive 0,partition.  Maybe if grub doesn't have to go looking for device
>> UUID's it won't probe the CD-ROM
>>
>> --
> Hi,
> I updated from 9,04 to 9.10 via update manager, so do not have  9.10 cd,
> took 6 ½ hours.
> I can install Lilo from repositories, so is it possible to have both
> grub and lilo installed at the same time,
> and select lilo from boot menu.
> Sorry for my ignorance, but if this is so, this may prevent grub from
> probing the Cd drive.
> Still have much to learn, not enough time, and very bad short term memory :-)
> Thanks
> Winton
> 

I think NoOp's solution is the most elegant.  Grub doesn't have any
drivers for your chipset, so can only probe devices through the good old
fashioned bios commands.  disable that device in the BIOS, and it
shouldn't be touched before the OS takes command.  (It may seem counter
intuitive, but individual ata devices disabled in bios should still be
accessible to a modern OS, including Linux and Windows.)