CD/DVD drive will not install OS

[markjs]

I am always coming across drives that will not install Windows, and recently I have noticed that the same drives will not install Ubuntu either. The drives seem to work to varying degrees doing anything else, but installing OS's just doesn't happen. It really got me angry when I bought a brand new Lite-On DVD burner from Newegg that had this same flaw right out of the box! I am really happy they are cheap, but have quality control stndards just gone to hell that much with the cheap price? I began to notice the phenomenon years ago, but it has been a more common source of frustration in my life recently, and coincidentally everything has become dirt cheap.

Oh and also this is with a pristine copy of Ubuntu. My windows CD's always end up looking like they have been through wars but usually when this happens I always have another drive on hand that reads the windows CD fine, or I'll use a pristine burned Windows CD and it will still not work in one of the "semi-bad" drives but work fine in another drive.

 

[Peter]

What's the exact symptom of "will not install"? Installer complains of missing/corrupted files?

 

[sunlihwa]

I am sorry to hear you didn't buy the good product with low price from Newegg. So please be more careful and patient to compare the price and product in the internet. Good suggestion for search in here

 

[StormRider]

I've had similar problems in the past. When I underclocked my system, I was able to install the OS from the CD/DVD drive. I don't know if the problem was with the CD/DVD drive, the motherboard, the memory or some combination of the components.

 

[markjs]

It always will get partway through the install then it can't read certain files. It says they are missing or corrupt.

 

[jackschmittusa]

Sometimes bad ram or bad timings will give symptoms like that.

 

[markjs]

Originally posted by: jackschmittusa
Sometimes bad ram or bad timings will give symptoms like that.

But why then would the same ram work with a different drive? It is something that is always fixable by swapping the CD/DVD unit. I am sure it was never bad RAM.

 

[Zepper]

SATA optical drives may have this problem, but shouldn't if the SATA controller is integrated into the mobo's chipset and the BIOS settings are correct (SATA function set to non RAID (or IDE), set to boot from CD, etc., boot drive order) - sometimes putting on the Cannel 1 SATA connector will help.

Generally there is less problem booting from PATA optical drives as long as BIOS is set to boot from CD, drive is set to Master or on the primary connector (end of cable) for Cable Select.

.bh.

 

[markjs]

These are IDE drives I am talking about.

 

[Zepper]

Well, make sure it is either set to Master or on the Primary connector (usually black) on a Cable Select cable. Generally CS cables are color coded (blue connector must go to mobo, black on other end is primary, gray in middle is secondary. If drive is jumpered to Master, it doesn't matter where it is located on the cable, but convention is still on the end connector. Most recent opticals should have a 40-pin, 80-wire cable as their interface speeds are 66MHz or higher (the Samsung I got last year was still at 33MHz max...) I generally use 80-wire cables on all opticals, shouldn't hurt and may help.

.bh.

 

[bwatson283]

not all optical drives like being booted to....... Try another drive

 

[Peter]

SATA or IDE, 40- or 80-wire cable, any CD drive made after 1995 should be able to boot. And any and all drives should be able to read files from disks.

Thus, if you have such failures with one drive but not with the next one, then that's because the drive is bad, not because of anything else.