[GRLUG] DVD/CD drive failure?

[john-thomas richards]

My Gateway MT6840 laptop was generating errors for the Optiarc DVD RW
drive.  It is still under warranty so after going through Gateway's
Tech Support scripts twice via email, they sent me a new drive.  Upon
booting with the new drive, I am getting the same error message:

rondo:/# tail /var/log/messages
May 23 23:01:19 rondo kernel: Restarting tasks ... done.
May 23 23:01:20 rondo kernel: hda: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady
SeekComplete Error }
May 23 23:01:20 rondo kernel: hda: drive_cmd: error=0x04 {
AbortedCommand }
May 23 23:01:20 rondo kernel: ide: failed opcode was: 0xef

I compared this message to what I had in the earlier logs and it is
identical, i.e., the new drive has the exact same problem as the
original drive.  The original drive would often hang when trying to
mount a disc.  Playing music would work, but it would take several
minutes to begin each track (once a track started it played flawlessly).
Each track would have this delay.  A DVD movie would start playing but
would always hang shortly after starting.  With the new drive I get a
delay when mounting a disc or when starting a DVD movie but once a disc
is mounted or a movie starts it seems to work properly thereafter.
Music CDs play properly with no delay between tracks.  When I bought the
laptop it had Windows Vista installed.  I immediately upgraded Vista to
Debian and had a terrible time with the drive (it would spin extremely
fast and then stop spinning for several minutes and then spin up again
and start working for a time).  Other than a delay when mounting CDs
and starting DVD movies, and error messages (I also get "kernel: hda:
lost interrupt"), the drive seems to be working fine.  Is it at all
possible that this is a kernel issue?  Perhaps something is not
configured quite right.  Any ideas?  Google just says the drive is
failing and should be replaced.  Since the drive is new (or would
Gateway send me a bad replacement?) could this be a motherboard problem?
-- 
john-thomas
------
There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and
actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.
Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)