Dead LG

[NotQuiteHere]

A friend of mine killed their LG CDROM when they tried to install Mandrake 9.2

I went to the website, found the firmware update, put it on a floppy so I could use it on their PC. I checked the image about emergency download jumper settings. So, with this info in hand, i went and tried to fix it. The drive cant be detected, even with the emergency jumper settings and everything. It poweres up, but the PC still refuses to see it. Also, the firmware upgrade program also claims it cant find a cdrom on the port.

Anyone have any ideas?

[Bill in SD, CA]

What is listed in Device Manager under CDROM's?

Bill

[NotQuiteHere]

Nothing at the moment...... of course, it doesnt help that Windows isnt installed on the machine. Linux was to be the only OS on it.

[Bill in SD, CA]

I'm out of my league when it comes to Linux.

Sorry,

Bill

[Peter M]

The problem with the LG drives was that they used a standard command to trigger the firmware upgrade - a command that Windows doesn't ever use but Linux does. To add insult to injury, the LG drives then didn't even check whether the incoming data actually are a firmware upgrade.
Double stupid move by LG. Triple stupid because the drive doesn't have a recovery mode that'd engage after a failed firmware upgrade.

In other words, it's dead, Jim. You know what brand to avoid.

[NotQuiteHere]

Thank you once again man...... I had figured it more than dead, but decided that I had better ask opinions before I chalked it up as a lost.

[pelicanman]

There is a possible solution to this sort of thing I've used when saving BIOS chips that were incorrectly flashed, but it's dicey.

If you can get ahold of a (working) duplicate drive bring it all the way to being flashed by the new BIOS image, but after it's recognized the drive and ready to flash, just before you apply the BIOS flash, swap out the working drive and swap in the dead one. Might work or might not, but this procedure has saved a few BIOS chips for me.

[Peter M]

The drive is dead in the sense that it internally doesn't work because its brain is gone. Dead as a doornail.

Hot plugging IDE stuff is just going to kill another drive and possibly the mainboard along with it. I can't believe reading this recommended here.