Hello, I've tried the patch (thanks a lot for your help) and it works more or less. More precisely: when booting without a CD in the drive: * no errors during the boot * the drive is now active (that's a big plus) * it can read about half the CDs that I insert (in a sample of ~7 audio and data, burnt and pressed), I have tested no DVDs yet, and I haven't burnt anything yet * sudo hdparm -I /dev/sr0 now gives /dev/sr0: ATAPI CD-ROM, with removable media Model Number: PIONEER DVD-RW DVRTD08 Serial Number: Firmware Revision: 1.00 Standards: Likely used CD-ROM ATAPI-1 Configuration: DRQ response: 50us. Packet size: 12 bytes Capabilities: LBA, IORDY(can be disabled) Buffer size: 64.0kB DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 *udma2 Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4 Cycle time: no flow control=120ns IORDY flow control=120ns Commands/features: Enabled Supported: * Power Management feature set * PACKET command feature set * DEVICE_RESET command * NOP cmd * SATA-I signaling speed (1.5Gb/s) * Host-initiated interface power management * Phy event counters Device-initiated interface power management * Software settings preservation * and the error log when a CD can't be read looks like this (dmesg tail) [ 227.213893] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK [ 227.213914] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Sense Key : Medium Error [current] [ 227.213926] Info fld=0x2e81 [ 227.213930] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Add. Sense: L-EC uncorrectable error [ 227.213942] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 47616 [ 227.213954] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 5952 [ 234.227424] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK [ 234.227446] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Sense Key : Medium Error [current] [ 234.227457] Info fld=0x2e81 [ 234.227461] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Add. Sense: L-EC uncorrectable error [ 234.227473] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 47616 [ 234.227484] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 5952 [ 241.163142] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK [ 241.163162] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Sense Key : Medium Error [current] [ 241.163173] Info fld=0x2e81 [ 241.163177] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Add. Sense: L-EC uncorrectable error [ 241.163189] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 47616 [ 241.163200] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 5952 [ 248.171706] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK [ 248.171726] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Sense Key : Medium Error [current] [ 248.171738] Info fld=0x2e81 [ 248.171742] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Add. Sense: L-EC uncorrectable error [ 248.171754] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 47616 [ 248.171765] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 5952 [ 255.183025] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK [ 255.183044] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Sense Key : Medium Error [current] [ 255.183056] Info fld=0x2e81 [ 255.183060] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Add. Sense: L-EC uncorrectable error [ 255.183072] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 47616 [ 255.183083] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 5952 [ 262.195902] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK [ 262.195920] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Sense Key : Medium Error [current] [ 262.195932] Info fld=0x2e81 [ 262.195936] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Add. Sense: L-EC uncorrectable error [ 262.195948] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 47616 [ 262.195961] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 5952 [ 269.198031] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK [ 269.198051] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Sense Key : Medium Error [current] [ 269.198063] Info fld=0x2e81 [ 269.198067] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Add. Sense: L-EC uncorrectable error [ 269.198079] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 47616 [ 269.198090] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 5952 [ 276.667490] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK [ 276.667509] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Sense Key : Medium Error [current] [ 276.667521] Info fld=0x2e81 [ 276.667525] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] Add. Sense: L-EC uncorrectable error [ 276.667536] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 47616 [ 276.667547] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 5952 * When booting with a CD that doesn't work after an 'empty boot', I get similar errors as before (and like the last pair of lines above), but the CD can be read. When I insert another CD that didn't work after an empty boot afterwards, it still doesn't work. I guess that this is a state of things I can more or less live with (unless you have a still better idea), I don't know whether the patch should go in the trunk. Though it doesn't completely fix things, for me it's better than before. Obviously, it would be best if the Pioneer people fixed their broken firmware soon, which I hope they will. Anyway, thank you very much for your help. With other OSs it's probably not so easy to get developer support ;-) Merry christmas, Moritz Am Dienstag, den 23.12.2008, 12:03 +0900 schrieb linux-ide@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx: > linux-ide@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > > There's no error in dmesg output. But when I boot with a disk in the > > drive, I get the following errors in the boot screen: > > * Loading hardware devices > > [23.927373] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 1431744 > > [23.927373] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 178968 > > and then several more with just a different number in the square > > brackets. However, that does not seem to affect the operation of the > > drive. > > Does the attached patch fix the problem? Please do some data > integrity checks as it skips setxfermode on the drive. If it's native > SATA, it probably should be okay but still it's way out of the spec. > > Thanks. > -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-ide" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html