[ale] sbpcd trouble. Any ideas?

[Joe]

Hi, all.

I bought my very first CD-ROM drive about a month ago; Damark had a
SoundBlaster-16 + 2x CDROM deal for $99, and I couldn't pass it
up. Installation was uneventful, and when I was done, Linux (1.2.13
ELF) could see the drive and the sound card, and everything was great.

However, a couple of days ago, Linux suddenly became unable to mount
the CD-ROM drive. Details follow; does anyone have any idea what could
cause this? I would be surprised if it is a hardware problem, given
the symptoms, but I am open to the possibility :-( (actually, I'm just
fervently hoping...) I tried multiple different CD's in all the
following cases, and got the same results.

(1) DOS can still mount the drive, and I can see data on the drive
from DOS.

(2) Linux can still see and utilize the sound card, and Workbone can
still play audio CD's without any trouble.

(3) Attempts to mount the drive (with a legitamate data-bearing disk
in it) produce the following in /var/adm/messages (command: mount -t
iso9660 -o ro /dev/sbpcd /cdrom):

Apr 27 20:43:08 whyknot kernel: sbpcd-0 [15]:  bad cc_ReadStatus after
read: 00
Apr 27 20:43:09 whyknot kernel: sbpcd-0 [16]:  st_check detected -
retrying.
Apr 27 20:43:14 whyknot kernel: sbpcd-0 [17]:  bad cc_ReadStatus after
read: 00
Apr 27 20:43:14 whyknot kernel: sbpcd-0 [18]:  st_check detected -
retrying.
Apr 27 20:43:19 whyknot kernel: sbpcd-0 [19]:  bad cc_ReadStatus after
read: 00
Apr 27 20:43:19 whyknot kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev 1900,
sector 64
Apr 27 20:43:20 whyknot kernel: isofs_read_super: bread failed, dev
0x1900 iso_blknum 16

(4) I have tried initializing the drive in DOS and then warm-booting
Linux, but no joy.

(5) A couble of times, I have seen a message like "MSCDEX(14): low
level driver error" go by during boot, but I am not sure if it is
being caused by DOS or Linux - DOS, I think (I use LOADLIN). This is
not repeatable -- I have only seen it twice.

Is it possible I just need to use a head cleaner? Or is something more
sinister going on?

>> Subject change <<

I would be interested in hearing about people's experience with cheapo
53C810 cards. I bought one of these a few months back when I was
planning to get a SCSI CD-ROM drive, but I found that compiling in the
driver for it caused my system to hang randomly. (Naturally, I don't
know this *for absolute sure* -- but when I took out the driver, the
system quit hanging. The card was in the machine, but had no devices
attached to it. Could that cause a hang?)

Thanks in advance,

- Joe