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600SC DVD-ROM/CD-RW won't read DVDs... and many more problems!
My system has:
PowerEdge 600SC
BIOS Rev. A09 (no updates on Dell site for this)
PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller BIOS 3.35
PERC 3/SC
2 SCSI HDDs that were wiped and reconfigured into RAID1
DVD-ROM/CD-RW
The DVD drive will only read CDs, but (as far as I know) in order to update anything I need the DVDs; I already tried several CD applications from the site, to no avail.
It's not the DVD drive, as I tried a different one and had the same problem. I even switched the jumpers from CS to MA, and also putting it from Primary IDE to Secondary IDE. The BIOS says it is a CR-ROM Reader (maybe it's supposed to say this, maybe not- I don't know). Any ideas for this? I want to install Debian onto this system.
Also...
After I installed "Disk Utilities" from a CD (from Dell website) this is what happens when I try to F10 into it:
Loading PBR for descriptor 1...done.
Bad PBR signature
Any ideas for that? I tried to install the Disk Utilities to try to resolve the first problem... Dell, what a PoS, but it's the only server I have.
Workaround:
Because of my very specific situation, I have connected an ethernet cord from the server to my other PC to share internet access and am currently installing Debian from the "net-install" CD I downloaded. The reason I didn't do this first is because I read I needed to update some firmware in order to do this- apparently not. I will try to update as to whether or not I can get the DVD drive to recognize DVDs.
Update: The Debian net installer didn't work, either because of a corrupt disk/iso or because of failure to connect to the internet/driver_issue. I have now started to install from the offline 8 CD set; fingers crossed.
osprey4
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November 23rd, 2013 04:00
Hi William.A87,
The jumper for Dell IDE drives should be set to CS. If it is the only drive on the IDE cable, it should be plugged into the connector at the end of the cable. Do that, then verify the drive is recognized in the BIOS. Once that checks out, boot to a flash drive containing the Dell diagnostics and run the read test on your DVD drive using a data CD, then re-run the test with a data DVD to verify both lasers function properly.
Let me know what you find.
william.a87
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November 23rd, 2013 09:00
I did that already; sorry if it wasn't clear, I thought it was. I have also already placed the drive back to CS and it is on the end of the cable; I have also left it on the Secondary IDE bus. All DVD drives (2 tested as both master and master/slave) only show up in BIOS as "CD Reader".
Even though in the BIOS I have it set to "Support USB with boot support" it will not boot from a USB. I also tried installing Disk Utilities from the 4.5_ISM_A00.iso (the only Dell CD I got to work), which said it went successful, but when I try to access it with at POST it says: PBR error (see original post for exact output).
osprey4
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November 23rd, 2013 12:00
In older systems, the BIOS merely recognizes an ATAPI device but can't tell the difference between a CD and DVD drive. This may be normal.
Do you know for sure the DVD aspect of the drives work in another system?
william.a87
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November 23rd, 2013 16:00
Yes, the DVD drives both read DVDs when connected to other systems.
Workaround Debian OS install update:
I burned the first 3 Debian CDs in a series of 8 and did an offline install.
In order to get internet access (without hooking up directly to router, as I needed it next to me for testing purposes) I hooked it up to my other PC (eth0 to eth0). On my working PC I had already set up a "shared" connection. This allowed me internet access to download packages; now that I have SSH installed I can connect the server directly to the router.
I have not yet tested if it will now read DVDs from the operating system, but I doubt it as the BIOS won't. ...Just one of those "Dell" problems I guess.
osprey4
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November 24th, 2013 05:00
Again, the BIOS may or may not be able to detect a DVD drive from any generic ATAPI drive. If you can boot to a USB stick, you should be able to test the ability to read a DVD. The Dell diagnostics are one way to do this but there are plenty of alternatives.