CD/DVD Drive Causing Kernel Panic

[malsell]

I have a Dell Vostro 1500 that is a few years old and I'm having an occasional issue with kernel panics.  The only thing that seems to link them is my CD/DVD drive.  9/10ths of the panics I get are either upon inserting or removing a disc.  I removed the drive and swapped for a new one and still getting the same issue.  any ideas?

[AS]

I have a Dell Vostro 1500 that is a few years old and I'm having an occasional issue with kernel panics.  The only thing that seems to link them is my CD/DVD drive.  9/10ths of the panics I get are either upon inserting or removing a disc.  I removed the drive and swapped for a new one and still getting the same issue.  any ideas?

Hello and welcome to PCLinuxOS forum!

There is the need of some more info, i.e. kernel version, and CD/DVD unit brand/model, BIOS SATA interface settings ...
why do you think it's a kernel panic ? Any messages ?
Have you tried to perform a memory test ?

AS

[Vorteggs]

Is it possible for some reason you have your CD/DVD drive mounted as a hard-drive partition?

[horusfalcon]

Is it possible for some reason you have your CD/DVD drive mounted as a hard-drive partition?

Huh...  He'd have had to go out of the way to do that, right?  (PCLinuxOS generally configures laptop optical drives as 'srX' where the 'r' stand for removable.)

@malsell:  Have you tried this with an external drive (i.e., a USB device)?  I'd be curious at this point whether the system did this under Windows, too.  That would point to a possible problem with the optical drive's interface.  I'm not familiar enough with the Vostro line to make that call, but the following link should help you out there:

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/vos1500/en/sm/index.htm

That's the Service Manual.  Good stuff in there.

One last question:  Have you flashed your laptop's BIOS to the latest version yet?  You might give that a try (but make sure you have a good battery and a good AC adapter before you start.)  If you have a small child, dog, cat or other pet that might mess with your laptop during the flashing process, please do not let them near while the process is running - it'll save your sanity.

Later On,
D

[malsell]

Sorry for not responding sooner...work...It seems to be a random issue that doesn't show up in a logcat.  It seems to happen only when inserting or removing a cd/dvd and does not happen with any USB devices (hdds, thumbdrives, cd-roms). The stock DVD-R/W drive is a Sony and the other I have tried is a Toshiba.  Both create the same panic.  I will check the mount to ensure it's not mounting as a hdd and causing the error that way, but it's not a constant issue, sometimes it can be 3 or 4 months between issues and sometimes it's 3 or 4 times in a day, depending upon how much i'm using the drive.

[AS]

may be this can help:

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,95600.0.html