Problem with Dell laptop and Nec DVD+RW 6100A

Hello all,

My Dell laptop (Inspiron 8600) comes with a Nec DVD+RW 6100A drive, and it doesn't seem to be working properly with Breezy. First of all, CD playback is very skippy and poor---it seems like the Gnome CD player is having difficulty reading the disc properly, although it works fine under Windows XP. In addition, when I try pressing the tray release button on the drive, to change disk, there is no response! Again, Linux-only problem.

Can anyone advise on a method to check what hardware Ubuntu thinks I have, and how to correct it if the setup is wrong?

Many thanks,

-- Joe

Have you got DMA enabled?

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DMA

run this for identification:

sudo hdparm -I /dev/hdc

...where hdc is the drive!

Hmm, seems to have fixed things. Thanks very much! :-)