MESSAGE
| DATE | 2004-06-17 |
| FROM | From: "Steve Milo"
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] Gene Wilder once said it best
|
in Young Frankenstien.
LIFE! LIFE! GIVE THIS BEING LIFE!
You can imagine my relief when I was able to finish installing YDL 3.0.1 on my
laptop last night. To quote another line from a movie: 'Its like a load has
been lifted. Gone. Where is it? Who knows.
So last night I decided to remove the back plate of my laptop and completely
disassemble my the CDROM for good measure. I finally found screwdrivers small
enough to facilitate disassembly of this unit. Well as I was removing one of
the screws I noticed the smalles allen-wrench head I ever saw. Right at the
front of the unit. I couldnt figure out what it was for so I removed it and
found that it would accutate something. The only way to be sure was to remove
the cover for the CDROM. Lo and behold this thing accutates the angle of the
tracks the laser rides on. I wasnt going to bank all my hopes on whether this
would actually solve my problem so I inspected the guts of the drive. But
this revealed nothing that appeared to be out of the ordinary.
I reassembled the CDROM and reinstalled it but left the back cover of the
laptop off so I could use my extremely accurate device to precisely adjusted
the laser. Yes I just happen to have just such a rare device, this device I
have at my disposal are very far and few in between. Such devices are
extremely hard to come by and are usually acquired through great cost in time
and experience. They go by different names these devices and are very unique
but once in possesion of such devices an owner is reluctant to relinquish it.
My device I have named 'the seat of my pants', it has served me well.
Yesterday, with the back end of my PB G4 exposed with the laptop itself
sitting sideways on the table I utilized the seat of my pants to adjust
somewhat successfully the laser. Atleast just enough to get YDL-3.0.1 to get
fully installed without missing one single package!
The process went something like this:
Back out adjusting screw all the way.
Power up laptop.
Insert CDROM and listen for thrashing.
Tighten adjusting screw until thrashing subsides.
Machine boots into OS.
Access CDROM and listen for thrashing.
Adjust screw to and fro until thrashing subsides.
Repeat steps A to eleventeen.
Once machine boots into the YDL boot disk adjust with
just the slightest increments.
Fall asleep.
Wake up a few minutes later rush to the laptop only to discover that nothing
has gone wrong.
My guess is the reason the CDROM was so problematic was because the angle
of the laser to the CDROM was off causing the reflection to not return at the
proper angle. The end result was the circuitry would overcompenstate causing
the head to thrash while it tried to catch up with the reflection.
I'm naming my laptop Young Frankenstein and catching up on some sleep tonight.
Steve M
____________________________
NYLXS: New Yorker Free Software Users Scene
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