What the Hell happened

[StealthHawk]

i would like some opinions please.

first some background info: i have a dvd drive and a cdrw drive on the 2nd IDE channel. the cdrw is a slave to the dvd.

let's start this story during Thanksgiving weekend. i opened up my computer case and removed my 56k modem. that week, whenever i powered on my computer, the LED on my cdrw drive would just keep blinking, and pressing the eject button wouldn't do anything. Windows would not detect either the dvd or cdrw(ie, they weren't shown in My Computer or the device manager).

if i restarted my computer through windows, the drives would then both be detected and work fine.


now, jump to this week. no amount of restarting will get this problem to go away. sometimes it randomly does, and both drives work, but not usually. i can open and close my dvd drive but it won't read anything.

thinking that some cables might have possibly got loose, i checked them and everything seems to be fine. i don't understand what's wrong, is my drive just dying/dead? it seems to be an awful coincidence that all this started after i took my modem out.

now, i may just be clueless, but i also don't see why the failure of the cdrw(secondary slave) would effect the dvd(secondary primary), seeing as how i have a friend with a dead secondary drive which doesn't effect the primary in the least.

[zsynth]

Make the CD-RW the master, make sure it's jumper is set right, and connect it to the end of the ribbon cable. Make the DVD the slave.

[LORD-eX-Bu]

that sucks, I always make the cd drives slaves of the hard drives no matter what. I haven't had any probs yet.;) In your case, hmm... could be your bios?:confused:

[zsynth]

Generally, CD-RW's prefer to be used as masters. DVD's aren't as picky.

[thcdru2k]

yeah i have my cd-rw as master, and dvd as slave.

[LORD-eX-Bu]

does that improve performance?

[zsynth]

Did you add\remove\replace any drives in the past? If so there may be reminent registry settings from old drives. Look in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\SCSI see if there's old leftover entries to a DVD or CDRW you replaced (delete em'). Check bios to see if their recognized properly.

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by [eNv]-LORD-eX-Bu
does that improve performance?

the primary should have better performance than the slave...i think. at least that used to be true in the old days :p

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by zsynth
Did you add\remove\replace any drives in the past? If so there may be reminent registry settings from old drives. Look in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\SCSI see if there's old leftover entries to a DVD or CDRW you replaced (delete em'). Check bios to see if their recognized properly.

nope, both these drives have been in the system fro about 1.5 years.

the dvd drive is recognized in the bios, but not the cdrw. at this point i really think it somehow died. i think i'm still under warranty, bu if not, it was only a 12x burner, so it's on the slow side now. i might just end up buying a new burner for this rig and transferring the replacement to another one.

[zsynth]

I once had a brand new LiteOn 48x24x48 that refused to be recognized until I reflashed the firmware.

[LORD-eX-Bu]

cd burners are really cheap now anyways. Just a matter of tastes.:D ;)

[poursoul]

have you tried connecting them one at a time to the secondary channel as master to see if they both still work? Also why don't you stick the DVD drive as slave on the primary channel anyway? You would get more reliable performance from CD to CD burns in that configuration.

[StealthHawk]

heh, i've never done cd to cd burns :D

the computer came this way(yes, yes, i know. i should build it myself :p ). i'm going to try setting the cdrw as the primary on the secondary channel and see if that helps.

i disconnected the cdrw and the dvd started working...so i'm inclined to think that the cdrw is busted for now.

what are some good sites that list firmware revisions(and have them available for download). i've tried going to NECs site, but i can't find jack there :(

[LORD-eX-Bu]

heh, I have a prob now where the stupid comp won't recognize the second HD. I think I screwwed up when I was messing with jumpers. LOL.:D All better.:D

[The Baron]

If Windows or Linux don't see the CD drives, then you can't flash the BIOS.

[zsynth]

I put it in another computer that did recognize it, to flash it. Don't ask me to explain it. It was recognized, but didn't work properly. The only files it would recognized were .cda's. After upgrading the firmware, it worked. ???!!!

[g0at]

i had this same problem happen to me with my CD-R and my HDD.
the culprit was bad grounding =(

I remember CAREFULLY taking my drives out of my system, and then my friend (after walking across my house on the carper) started prodding them carelessly. I told him they would probably **** up and they didnt once i put them back in.

but sure enough (like static discharges do) it took a while to see the effects. soon enough they were being detected/not being detected/being detected but not reading, etc.

I dont want to call you careless for not being properly grounded, but this kind of thing happens even to the best of us :(

[StealthHawk]

hmm, well, my question stemmed more from whether it was a hardware problem or a software problem.

i disconnected the dvd drive completely and set the cdrw to be the secondary master. but it still won't work on power on and i have to restart or go into the bios to have it recognized in windows. the bios is recognizing it on power on.

[poursoul]

Your a wierdo goat.

[g0at]

hey, it happens =p

[Switch]

Stealth, I had a burner do this on me, TDK said it was some sort of alignment had gone bad and replaced the drive for me. Your PCI bus isn't overclocked is it?

[The Baron]

Static discharge?

Sounds like K.I.L.E.R.'s hands are in his pants again

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by Switch
Stealth, I had a burner do this on me, TDK said it was some sort of alignment had gone bad and replaced the drive for me. Your PCI bus isn't overclocked is it?

naw, no overclocking. i'm gonna see if replacing this drive fixes the problem sometime soon, i think i have a 3 year warranty on it.