Q: How do I fix spontaneous reboots when my CD-ROM is accessed?

One of our engineers is using a system that was working fine until recently. Lately, often when he tries to read data off the CD-ROM drive, the system will suddenly power down or reboot. It will only happen if there is a CD-ROM — and it only happens about 70% of the time. I have determined it is probably not a software problem, since it occurs in both Linux and Win95. I have checked all of the SCSI and power connections, and everything appears to be fine. The 30% of time when it doesn't reboot, the CD-ROM works like a dream.

The machine will shut itself and you will have to manually hit the switch to turn it back on, and sometimes it reboots on its own.

A: The most likely source of this problem is a bad CD-ROM drive. I'd suggest replacing it.