Hi Willie, You were right on the money about the BIOS. I went online to see if there's a new version of the BIOS. There wasn't but I downloaded the one I have again anyways, and loaded it. Reboot, and what do you know, it boot straight off the CD! So it would seem that my BIOS was somehow damaged.
On Wed, 2006-04-19 at 18:52 -0700, Willie Wonka wrote: > > > By chance - is that a Matsushita DVD-RAM drive ? (or similar?) > > > Yes it is. What's the significance? > > I aplolgize, I do not have any specific details -- BUT that particular > DVD drive sure shows up a LOT, even on windoze forums/NGs/usenet as > having a "plethera" of issues associated with it. That's interesting. Except for the booting issue (which turned out not to be the drive's fault) this drive has been good so far. It performs very close to what it's rated at, and has read a few discs successfully that I cannot read in any other drive. Guess I got to be glad it's not the stuff they used to rebrand for desktop CD writers! > Is that a Dual-boot? (winblows 2K/XP) [+] GNU/Linux? Yes, the WindowsXP (32bit) came pre-installed, I just shrunk the partition and put linux on the rest. > Do you have software like "daemon tools" or "alcohol120" installed ? Alcohol120 on Windows, yes. I've only used it once, but that was long before I started having trouble. > Are you even aware of the SONY *rootkit* debacle related to DRM, that > was exposed circa November, 2005 ? Heard off but I haven't paid attention. Even though I believe Sony's audio/video products are some of the best for the money, I won't buy their stuff precisely because they're pushing hardware copy protection. Pity I can't source Philips drives locally, from what I've heard and read they are opposed hardware copy protection. > This may be mere speculation, but gotta say, overall the "coincidences" > appear to be compounding (associated) in many things I've read > lately.... He he, don't tempt me - I'm a big sucker for conspiracy theories! > > Cycle time: no flow control=240ns IORDY flow > control=120ns Should I change it? What does the setting do? > I *was* looking for some "Microcode load" (such as the "DOWNLOAD > MICROCODE cmd" above), but I don't think they still do 'that' with the > BIOS anymore, but *other* HP specific tricks, I'm sure they implement, > just like every OEM does Oh they do. On this particular notebook (HP nx6125 Canadian model), the wireless is a miniPCI card, Broadcom. I pulled it out and put in an Intel 2200, HP branded I might add (i.e. twice as expensive as it should be). Guess what? The notebook didn't even finish POST. It gave me a message "Unsupported wireless device detected" and stopped there. I would actually love to put the Atheros 108mb dual channel card I have lying around (from a wireless AP that was dropped), but I'm not even going to bother. > ....to be sure the Hardware matches the > "Software" one tries to install. HP/Compaq/Dell/IBM/Toshiba Recovery > Disks and Recovery Partitions ring a bell ? No, enlighten me? This is only the second time I bought anything from and OEM. The first was a Compaq Armada m700 notebook, but I bought it secondhand, and didn't get any CDs with it. Actually, I did get a CD with it - a linux CD (guy at the shop is an enthusiast). I didn't have any issues with that one, aside from the notebook itself being very picky about memory. Thanks for your help. Sometimes four-eye policy is the answer! Thanks Hans -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
