Shortly after upgrading to Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron, I found that my optical drive could no longer read and mount any media. Since I had just recently used it to install 8.04, I had assumed it was a software issue. Here are the messages I was getting in the logs:

May  5 17:42:02 nyx kernel: [ 4265.867147] UDF-fs: No partition found (1)
May  5 17:42:02 nyx kernel: [ 4265.867234] isofs_fill_super: bread failed, dev=sr0, iso_blknum=16, block=16
May  5 17:46:31 nyx kernel: [ 4394.145010] UDF-fs: No partition found (1)
May  5 17:46:31 nyx kernel: [ 4394.145119] isofs_fill_super: bread failed, dev=sr0, iso_blknum=16, block=16
May  5 17:46:58 nyx kernel: [ 4405.904726] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 0
May  5 17:46:58 nyx kernel: [ 4405.904732] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 1
May  5 17:46:58 nyx kernel: [ 4405.904734] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 2
May  5 17:46:58 nyx kernel: [ 4405.904737] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 3
May  5 17:46:58 nyx kernel: [ 4405.904739] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 4
May  5 17:46:58 nyx kernel: [ 4405.904741] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 5
May  5 17:46:58 nyx kernel: [ 4405.904743] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 6
May  5 17:46:58 nyx kernel: [ 4405.904745] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 7
May  5 17:46:58 nyx kernel: [ 4405.905542] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 0
May  5 17:46:58 nyx kernel: [ 4405.905549] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 1
May  5 17:47:10 nyx kernel: [ 4411.068188] printk: 10 messages suppressed.
May  5 17:47:10 nyx kernel: [ 4411.068192] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 0
May  5 17:47:10 nyx kernel: [ 4411.068196] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 1
May  5 17:50:03 nyx kernel: [ 4488.505841] isofs_fill_super: bread failed, dev=sr0, iso_blknum=16, block=16
May  5 17:51:10 nyx kernel: [ 4517.864765] isofs_fill_super: bread failed, dev=sr0, iso_blknum=16, block=16
May  5 17:55:45 nyx kernel: [ 4644.173955] isofs_fill_super: bread failed, dev=sr0, iso_blknum=16, block=16
May  5 17:59:51 nyx kernel: [ 4799.395757] UDF-fs: No partition found (1)
May  5 17:59:51 nyx kernel: [ 4799.396032] isofs_fill_super: bread failed, dev=sr0, iso_blknum=16, block=16
May  5 18:06:01 nyx kernel: [ 5073.300780] UDF-fs: No partition found (1)
May  5 18:06:01 nyx kernel: [ 5073.302026] isofs_fill_super: bread failed, dev=sr0, iso_blknum=16, block=16

After googling numerous terms and reading many pages of possible solutions, I finally gave up tinkering with config files and decided to swap the drive out for another. Considering that the CDs and DVDs that I’m trying to mount work quite well on the laptop and the server, it must be a problem unique to this machine. With the new drive at hand, I began the removal process just to find that the DVD drive’s connector fell apart. There were just enough connected pins to identify its presence, but nothing more. After swapping out the cable and rebooting the machine, we’re back reading everything five by five.

I had been working on that problem for days. I can only assume it broke while I was relocating drives between the desktop and the server. If I hadn’t had the spare DVD drive, I probably would not have checked the cable. Pictures of the broken cable compared to a not-broken cable appear to the right. The broken one was so subversive, I don’t even know what happen to the clip. I remember it in my hand and setting it down, but simply up and disappeared!

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