User:Lynnae/Optical Drive Testing

Optical Drive Testing Draft

Optical Drive Teaching Goals: Provide a systematic troubleshooting and testing approach for what has been a consistently inefficient and frustrating portion of the build process.; Deepen understanding of the use of various bootable devices, importance of BIOS boot order settings; Introduce different media types and drive functions
Optical Drive Testing Goals: Test from low-level functions (mechanical) to high level functions (write capabilities); Ensure mechanical function of the drive tray; Ensure proper cabling; Verify BIOS boot order settings and drive firmware via live boot; Verify read-write capability
Optical Drive Troubleshooting Goals: Isolate hardware problems (cabling, tray function) from software problems; Isolate drive firmware problems from operating system problems; Isolate media problems from firmware and/or operating system problems

Optical disks are commonly used for several purposes:

To play movies, music or games
As storage devices
As bootable 'images' for installing an operating system, or troubleshooting hardware or operating system issues. You boot to the disk like you would a hard drive.

In order to ensure that the drives installed in our machines are up to snuff, we test that drives:

STEPS	NOTES AND DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS
Installation Steps Cabling and jumpering
Take note of what your optical drive supports	Look at the symbols on the front of the drive. If you like, you can run `basiccheck -m` to verify that the drive functions are correctly reported in Ubuntu. Communication between firmware on the optical drive and the operating system is not always flawless; `basiccheck` can provide inaccurate information.
Test mechanical functions	Make sure the drive is securely seated and cabled correctly. Test first from the physical button on the drive; make sure the tray opens and closes smoothly. Test the tray function from software by opening a terminal and typing `eject`.
Test Live disk Boot	Grab a Live disk from the stack. Put it in the disk tray and reboot your computer. If the disk is recognized, and your BIOS boot order was set correctly in previous steps, you should have booted from the optical disk, rather than the hard drive. Do not install anything from here. Remove the disk and boot back to Ubuntu from the hard drive.
Test Read and Write Functions	Use either a CD-RW or DVD-RW, depending on what your drive supports. If it supports both, use a DVD-RW. Follow the step-by-step instructions in the Build Guide if you need additional help.

Troubleshooting Steps


Is the drive cabled correctly?	For IDE drives, make sure you have the primary drive jumpered as master. For a DVD drive, make sure you are using an 80-wire IDE cable, rather than the thicker-banded 40-wire ribbon cables. Older cables will not support higher drive speeds, and you may run into errors down the line. Double-check that all cables are snugly fastened on each end, without worn or bent pins. IDE cables especially wear out fairly quickly. For SATA drives, make sure you are connected to both signal (the smaller L-shaped cable) and power (the larger L-shaped cable that runs from the power supply).
Does the tray operate smoothly from the external button?	If you encounter a drive with mechanical problems (sticky tray, grinding noises when the button is pushed, a tray that does not open, etc), make sure that the drive is correctly positioned in the case, and nothing is blocking the tray from opening. If you are not sure, carefully cable the drive outside the case, and test if the tray opens correctly. Be sure to disconnect power before removing or touching parts inside the case.
Does the operating system recognize the optical drive?	See Troubleshooting Optical Drives from the CLI for more help.
Disk not recognized after blanking	Try blanking the disk again in another machine. Blanking is mostly a housekeeping step, it allows us to reuse read-write disks. It is not important in terms of testing the actual function of the drive.