System keeps trying to access/read my laptop’s empty CD drive

[Member einpoklum]

(I first filed this on bugzilla, but on second though I probably should have posted it here.)

I’m using a 16-to-18-years-old laptop, a Clevo Zeus M3CW, on which I recently installed antiX Linux 19.3. The kernel version is 4.9.235 (compiled for 486).

Now, whenever I boot, the kernel complains about I/O errors from device /dev/sr0 – my laptop’s built-in CD-ROM. This is what lsblk says about the device:

# lsblk -o +VENDOR,MODEL | head -1 ; lsblk -o +VENDOR,MODEL | grep sr0
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT VENDOR   MODEL
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom             TEAC     DW-224E-A

The drive is empty – no CD in there.

Later while the system runs, I get innumerable dmesg entries such as the following:

[   53.250051] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 unaligned transfer
[   53.250056] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 unaligned transfer
[   53.250066] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 unaligned transfer
[   53.250071] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 unaligned transfer
[   53.250076] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 unaligned transfer

and also this:

[   53.312725] REISERFS warning (device sr0): sh-2006 read_super_block: bread failed (dev sr0, block 16, size 512)
[   53.312746] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 unaligned transfer
[   53.312754] REISERFS warning (device sr0): sh-2006 read_super_block: bread failed (dev sr0, block 128, size 512)
[   53.359602] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 unaligned transfer
[   53.359617] EXT4-fs (sr0): unable to read superblock
[   53.405593] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 unaligned transfer
[   53.405606] EXT4-fs (sr0): unable to read superblock
[   53.464594] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 unaligned transfer
[   53.464608] EXT2-fs (sr0): error: unable to read superblock
[   53.533449] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
[   53.533461] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 Sense Key : Medium Error [current] 
[   53.533478] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 Add. Sense: Unable to recover table-of-contents
[   53.533490] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00
[   53.533516] SQUASHFS error: squashfs_read_data failed to read block 0x0
[   53.533528] squashfs: SQUASHFS error: unable to read squashfs_super_block

and these:

[ 2852.951421] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
[ 2852.951431] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 Sense Key : Medium Error [current] 
[ 2852.951444] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 Add. Sense: Unable to recover table-of-contents
[ 2852.951453] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 07 ff fc 00 00 02 00
[ 2852.951458] blk_update_request: 1680 callbacks suppressed
[ 2852.951462] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 2097136
[ 2852.951509] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 unaligned transfer
[ 2852.951514] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 2097136
[ 2852.951521] buffer_io_error: 1670 callbacks suppressed
[ 2852.951525] Buffer I/O error on dev sr0, logical block 2097136, async page read
[ 2852.951540] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 unaligned transfer
[ 2852.951544] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 2097137
[ 2852.951550] Buffer I/O error on dev sr0, logical block 2097137, async page read
[ 2852.951563] sr 1:0:0:0: [sr0] tag#0 unaligned transfer

I should also note that if I insert a CD, it automounts and reads fine.

I need to stop the repeated read attempts from the CD – especially after the boot process has concluded. What can I do?

• This topic was modified 2 years ago by einpoklum.

[Member einpoklum]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Xecure wrote:

Before you installed antiX, did you boot from CD/DVD or from USB?

USB. Well, ok, actually, not quite: I installed plop on an existing Windows install and booted from USB through that.

Xecure wrote:

If on USB, did this issue also occur during the live-USB experience?

Don’t know, the only thing I did when booting the live USB was start the installation…

Xecure wrote:

Please make sure you have sr0 configuration in /etc/fstab and set to noauto.

Naturally. It’s:
/dev/sr0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0

Xecure wrote:

If you can boot from USB, try booting on live-USB and seeing if there is the same issue.

The BIOS doesn’t support USB booting, and unfortunately, it seems grub’s installer doesn’t include the necessary drivers for me to see the USB partition 🙁

Xecure wrote:

If you think this is kernel related, use the package installer to test a different kernel version (be it legacy 4.4.0-XXX or newer 4.19.xxx) o the installed system (and selecting it in grub).

I’ll try that too and report.

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by einpoklum.

[Member PPC]

Helpful

Up

0

::

I can’t help with your main problem, but I may have a way around this:

einpoklum wrote:

The BIOS doesn’t support USB booting

You can burn a cd-rom with plop, like you I did, and boot from it and then select your usb drive and boot from it (you lose some menu options, but it should boot fine- I used this a lot in a now defunct desktop).
Or you can add plop to your grub menu and boot from it, without needing a plop boot cd (I never tried doing that)

EDIT: found the how to, that may work in antiX too: https://askubuntu.com/questions/500745/plop-boot-menu-in-ubuntu#502143

P.

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by PPC.
• This reply was modified 2 years ago by PPC.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Nevermind, I see boot with plop

Changing the boot order as mentioned might help. Let us know your next steps and the results.

Thanks

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by Brian Masinick.

--
Brian Masinick

[Member ModdIt]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Hi einpoklum,
sorry for late answer, go in to BIOS settings, You should I hope be able to set the CD Rom drive to last
boot device. I think you will find cdrom is it is at first place right now.
I can not tell you exactly where to look in BIOS as naming is sometimes pretty weird.
Probably be called boot menu.
A temporary method to allow installing is, on most computers is to specify boot drive, inconvenient as
you must do that every boot.

[Member einpoklum]

Helpful

Up

0

::

@BrianMasinick: I installed plop on the HDD (previously-installed OS); and plop proceeds to load the bootloader that’s on the USB, passing control to it.
@Xecure: Upping the kernel version didn’t help.
@Moddit: Removing the CD-ROM from the boot order in the BIOS didn’t help either.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Does the system on the hard drive reference sr0? Maybe that is where the reference is coming from if it is not in fstab or mentioned anywhere in the boot order.

Other thoughts?

--
Brian Masinick

[Member PPC]

Helpful

Up

0

::

If it isn’t solved by upping the kernel or editing the boot order in the BIOS, it can be some problem with your plop – are you still using it when booting? If so, did you try the latest version?
It’s stupid, but the only think I can think of is that, if you still are using plop at boot time, it may try to boot from cd and then stucks your cd drive… Is that even possible? I never had similar problems booting plop from cd-rom…

P.

[Anonymous]

Helpful

Up

0

::

hi einpoklum,

can you please post the

/etc/fstab

to see what the drive has for flags and settings.

[Member PPC]

Helpful

Up

0

::

*You post over at “https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/648799/system-keeps-trying-to-access-read-my-laptops-empty-cd-drive# ” had this response, that can help gutus here point you to the right path “How can lsblk give a size of 1024M to an empty drive? The driver must think it has a disk in it, and some part of the system is trying to probe for different filesystem types. – meuh` ”

*I saw a related situation here:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1787973

It was a Fedora bug, that got patched, maybe it can be the same here in antiX?

P.

[Member Xecure]

Helpful

Up

0

::

The 1024M size shown in lsblk is normal. It is a placeholder number. It normally remembers what what the size of the las CD you mounted.

$ lsblk /dev/sr0
NAME MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sr0   11:0    1 1024M  0 rom

$ lsblk /dev/sr0
NAME MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sr0   11:0    1 634.8M  0 rom

What really is strange is the driver trying to write to the empty CD drive when empty.
I tried searching for problems related to the CD/DVD device, in case others have experienced something similar, but I found nothing relevant. I really cannot find any clue
Please try installing the package setcd that would be used to check what is the state of the CD reader with

$ setcd -i /dev/sr0
/dev/sr0:
  No disc is inserted

If the device is working even when empty, it would say:

$ setcd -i /dev/sr0
/dev/sr0:
  Drive is not ready

You could also spend some time watching the command output
$ watch setcd -i /dev/sr0
To see if it changes its state randomly.

If this happens when there is nothing inside I would conclude that there is a problem in the connection between the CD reader and the computer. Maybe a cable, maybe the motherboard has problems reading it, or something else. I am really no expert in this.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member einpoklum]

Helpful

Up

0

::

@PPC: Nope, I’m not using plop anymore – grub is installed and I’m using that. but maybe I can try using plop and see if it has an effect.

As for the latest version – the last release was in 2013 🙂

[Member einpoklum]

Helpful

Up

0

::

As requested:

$ cat /etc/fstab 
# Pluggable devices are handled by uDev, they are not in fstab
UUID=2f928b9e-c473-4f34-b086-7e7069021a3d / ext4 defaults,noatime 1 1
UUID=9914d994-8b38-4354-b65f-313e9be87640 /boot ext4 defaults,noatime 1 1
UUID=20cdd61c-5d84-48fc-bfa1-f67b864584c0 swap swap defaults 0 0 
#-> /dev/sda2
UUID=681C84621C842D5E                      /media/681C84621C842D5E                     ntfs-3g    noauto,noexec,uid=1000,gid=users,dmask=002,fmask=113,users  0 0
/dev/cdrom                                 /media/cdrom                                iso9660    noauto,exec,users,ro            0 0
/dev/cdrw                                  /media/cdrw                                 iso9660    noauto,exec,users,rw            0 0
/dev/dvd                                   /media/dvd                                  udf        noauto,exec,users,ro            0 0
/dev/sr0                                   /media/sr0                                  auto       noauto,exec,users,ro            0 0

and also:

# setcd -i /dev/sr0
/dev/sr0:
  Disc found in drive:Unknown status 0

and I assure you – the drive is empty. Using watch, it doesn’t seem to change over a couple of minutes.

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by einpoklum.
• This reply was modified 2 years ago by einpoklum.

[Moderator christophe]

Helpful

Up

0

::

You said this laptop is 16-18 years old. Perhaps parts are malfunctioning due to wear/old age.

Have you tried keeping a non-bootable cd in the drive, as a possible work-around? You said the drive reads a cd fine. Perhaps that will stop it from seeking a cd.

If it’s off it’s nut, this just might work. 😉

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Anonymous]

Helpful

Up

0

::

I need to stop the repeated read attempts from the CD – especially after the boot process has concluded. What can I do?

my (admittedly feeble) suggestion:

skimread the manpage for the hdparm command
and/or websearch: hdparm +sr0

[Author]

Posts