I am trying to reinstall Fedora Core 5 (Linux distro/OS). After getting to the point where the installation had already formatted the hard drive and was installing packages, the computer ejected the second CD and requested the third.
When I put the third CD in, the following message came up:
"Unable to access CD-ROM"
It did not recognize any of the CDs that I put in.
When I restarted the computer, if the BIOS was set to boot from the HD, the GRUB loader prompt comes up. If the BIOS is set to boot from the CD, the following error comes up: "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"
If I remove the IDE cable from both the CD-ROM and the motherboard, and restart the computer, power down the computer and then replace the cable and power up the computer again, the computer recognizes the first CD of Fedora Core.
Once the CD has been ejected, the computer cannot read any subsequent CDs. I tried this during the 'test media' stage: inserting a different CD caused the computer to stop recognizing the CD-ROM.
I can hear it trying to turn and stopping.
The HD is on the Primary channel, and the CD-ROM is on the Secondary channel.
Setting Secondary Master to None under the BIOS, and disabling boot under the boot menu doesn't help: the computer still won't recognize the CD-ROM when I set Secondary Master back to Auto. The only thing that works, is removing the IDE cables and restarting the computer (see above).

Please excuse the long post.
I am relatively new to Linux; although I am a fairly experienced Windows user; I know almost nothing about hardware.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Things I will try next:
Test the CD as a slave on the Primary channel
Change IDE cables. I went to a computer store and they gave me a grounded cable (I think that's what it's called)
Test CD using KNOPPIX

How old is the cd-rom drive? Borrow a cd drive from someone if you can and try it.

Maybe the power supply is not supplying adequate energy to power the laser for too long - its a long shot, but it's worth investigating.

Regards,

Korrupt

The grounded cable was no use; it showed the same problem.
I have an older CD/DVD drive that I put as a master on the secondary IDE channel (with the other CD-ROM as the slave on the same channel), and that works fine. The CD I've been talking about, still show the same behavior: works the first time, and after the first eject is not recognized by the system.

fastco:
I bought the CD-ROM six months ago. It was manufactured in (if I remember correctly) April 2005.

korrupt:
How would I go about checking this up?

Thank you both, for your suggestions.