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Aug 8, 2001, 4:20am

Hi. I been trying to fix this problem with my PC for the past 3 weeks and I
am really lost here.
here is my problem.
I installed a CD-RW drive back in February 2001 if worked 100% fine up till
3 weeks ago.
I will no longer read or write to the CD type cdrw, it will not even notice
it.
my CD-ROM will not read them anymore ether.
however both drives will read all other CD types. If anyone can help me
here. Please don't be shy I am open to all options. Fill free to post a book
long idea I will read it all.
I tried everything I can possibly think of.
reinstalling the CDRW drive and all its software, scanning my PC for
viruses, scanning my PC for errors, doing a defrag, reinstalling windows98.

note: under no means will I reformat my hard drive, I have no way of backing
it up.

Aug 8, 2001, 12:42pm

Also, who installed it? I don't trust most technicians as far as I could throw them.
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Aug 8, 2001, 1:03pm

I believe that was Tuvok :-)
Yes I tried other CDRW type CD's, even blank ones to see if the formatting
would start for them.
Then I put in a used one or a blank one all I get is device not ready, for
all my drives.
I only get this when trying to read or write to a CDRW type CD.



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Aug 8, 2001, 1:06pm

I did all the installing, I installed it back in February 2001, 3 weeks ago
is when all this started


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Aug 8, 2001, 3:42pm

If cdr's & cdrw's are the only cd' types you're having problems with ,
your udf drivers may have been corrupted, or may not be loading.
I have a Creative Blaster cd-rw and it uses Prassi abCD which runs in the
tray
& in the control panel as "Disc Detector" .
Your cdrw probably uses similar mechanisms , check for them .
If you use windows 98/2000 or better ,then The System File Checker & The MS
Configuration Tool .
if all else fails , reinstall the udf drivers and once your cdrw is working
use sfc to register the driver details and to monitor them for changes.




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Aug 8, 2001, 4:35pm

I just got a brand new Yamaha lightspeed 2100EZ 16X write, 10X rewright, 40X
read, 40X rip. Out of the box it has almost the same problems.
Dell
Running Win Me.
800 P III
128 MB Ram
I have another 48x CD Rom drive.
Running Roxio ( Adaptec) Direct CD and Easy CD Creator.
Running tests as per Yamahas instructions through Easy CD Creator.
Installed all the latest software and firmware updates.
All devices showing correctly in Bios

Both drives read music disks although neither will automatically pull up a
music program and play the songs anymore. I have to open up a music player
and select the files to play.
Both will read and start up a game disk as normal.

The CD burner will test to read audio files from the 48x CD ROM but it won't
test data files.
It won't run any test from my hard drive and gets stuck on 'finding data
files for testing'.

Info/tips from Dell and Yamaha-
All Dell PC's have the CDROM jumper set to CSEL (not master) and I was told
to put the CD burner to CSEL too. Tried that, didn't work.
Put 48X on master, burner on slave. Same problem.

Final solution- Told that drive is defective and send back to where I bought
it. :-(

If anyone has any other idea as to what may be wrong or conflicting here
before I send it back it would be greatly appreciated. I personally think
there's some conflict someplace between the software and the burner but I'm
probably wrong.

Casay




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Aug 8, 2001, 4:36pm

Are all the CDRWs from the same "batch"? (Were they bought at the same time and place and brand?) If they were, they might have all
gone faulty, because simultanious death to both drives is an extreme rarity. Perhaps Windows has fucked up? Do CDRs work? Do you
have all your IDE drives manually jumpered to Master/Slave? Cable select and Windows don't always get along..... If you can't find
any other cause, try installing Windows on top of your current copy. Won't require formatting and will fix most problems a format
would.
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Aug 8, 2001, 7:26pm

Thank you. Thank you very much. =P

SW Chris

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Aug 8, 2001, 7:27pm

Sounds busted. Send it in on warranty for another one.

SW Chris

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Aug 8, 2001, 7:29pm

Oh yeah... sometimes it helps to change the IDE Cables around. It worked
for me. My CD burner was very touchy about the order I had my drives in.

SW Chris

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Aug 8, 2001, 9:51pm

Simple solution, if it didn't ship in the case, don't put it there. Dells are picky about anything and everything. Cable select and
Windows don't work right half the time with either multiple CDROMs or multiple hard drives or both. Dell power supplies are normally
insufficient, etc. etc. etc.
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Aug 8, 2001, 10:43pm

I have a Dell PowerEdge server. It has a good sized array of scsi disks,
dual procs... The power supply is way more than sufficient, and i've never
had any problems with it. Also have a 1Ghz Latitude. It's awesome... The
only problem I have ever had is that the switch that wakes the laptop when
you raise the LCD seems to be a little picky. It takes a few times of
opening and closing before it will wake up from standby.... Though, this
isn't a major problem...just sorta annoying at times.... From those 2
system purchases I have over $500 in free equipment. With the server I got,
a $400 scsi disk for $60, plus double the HD size on 2 of the disks. With
the Latitude I got a free port replicator and a Palm M100. I've very
impressed with Dell's systems, and their customer service/support. I'd
amazed that you seem to have had bad experiences with them. The only thing I
would recommend more than buying a Dell is building your own..... ;-)

-J.


--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jeremy Booker
JTech Web Systems
(www.JTechWebSystems.com -- Coming Soon)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Aug 8, 2001, 11:29pm

The server is a server, you don't wanna fuck with people rich enough to buy high end servers. Laptops are simple machines, only have
a few options, don't have to deal with variables like IDE cable, M/S/CS jumpers, BIOS, etc. Though I'd still rather spend $2000
cramming a full size Athlon based ATX PC into a briefcase (I've seen it done) and devising a battery system than buying a $3000
Pentium 3 based laptop.

The desktops on the other hand, are incredibly overpriced and incredibly picky and unending in their bitch-fits about new hardware
(This is from experiences with all 3 current production model Dimensions, the L, 4100 and 8100)

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Aug 9, 2001, 3:01am

Laptops are simple machines? My friend, you have not sampled the wonderful
world of the Dell Inspiron 8000 with GeForce2 Go graphics accelerator, built
in firewire, modem, network, 15" TFT screen, 128MB RAM, and 950 mhz
processor. =D That thing is awesome. If it breaks on you though, the
service may leave something to be desired...

SW Chris

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Aug 9, 2001, 3:45am

Heh, From what I've seen of the Tech support (haven't seen much because I've
never had to call...), they seem to be very good. There are news groups
where you can speak directly with engineer who test this stuff. (At least,
i've spoken with the man who verifies Red Hat will run on all the systems)
I'm sure the personal support isn't quite as nice, seeing as there are
hundres of thousands of more people with home comps rather than $10,000
servers. Someday, when I get some extra money... I'll buy a dell home
system and see if you accuations hold up...

Laptops, simple as they seem, are much more complex. The suckers heat up for
one thing... Don't ever try and use it in your lap; otherwise your leg will
feel funny for the next 20 mins (very nice if you have muscle craps in your
right leg...) The ram, processors, and motherboards are all specially
designed. Try makeing a hard drive slightly bigger than a PC card....Notice
you never see parts for laptops floating around either.

As for options.. the list of available features is as long, or longer than
the home computer list...

-J.


--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jeremy Booker
JTech Web Systems
(www.JTechWebSystems.com -- Coming Soon)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Aug 9, 2001, 3:57am

I've had my own problems with multiple hdd's and cd drives .
and after working thru them , I came to the following conclusions &
solutions

When possible use hardware from as few different manufacturers as possible.
i.e I use a Creatives Labs sound card , video card, cd-rw & dvd-r drives .

It may be low priced , but if it aint made by a well known / reputable
company, the savings won't be worth the trouble poor quality hardware can
cause.
( i.e. Aztech sound/modem combo card . I had more trouble from it in 6
months then I had with my Creative Blaster pci 16 & USR 3com winmodem in 2
years)

You're better off building it yourself , instead of a couple thousand for a
package that has useless software than you could ever care for.

With my current system I couldn't use 3 hdds , the system would only
recognize 2 of them at a time .

I also had trouble with the cdrw & dvd-r drives.
If you're sure all required software is loading correctly (check
autoexec.bat & config.sys also) , disconnect the cd-rw and disable it's
drivers.
Then take the other drive for a thorough spin
FYI , there are a couple system settings that control the autoplaying of
music cd's . You can use TweakUI ( MS Powertoys) to control this and other
settings.
I have found it usefull for windows 95 & 98.

If that drive works fine , then disable it's drivers and disconnect it ,
reconnect the cd-rw , re-install it and put it to the test.
If ANY of the drives have trouble accessing cd's that you believe are not
damaged & should be accessable , check the device manager for any conflicts
,
and make sure DMA is disabled for both drives ( I have found that windows 95
& 98 tends to have trouble using DMA modes with my hardware setup.
Also , as you are switching out drives , make sure the IDE cables are
undamaged , have no creases, etc.
Make sure the 1 pin is matched to the 1 plug on both ends on the cables,
make sure the cables are firmly seated ( including the power plugs )

In my case My CD-RW MUST be setup as Master & the DVD-R as Slave , and they
must be together on the same cable , the HDD or the bios doesn't like
either of them sharing the cable with the HDD.

Remember :
1) Tthe IDE cable has 3 plugs , the 2 plugs that are closest to one end
are for the drives , the lone plug connects to the motherboard.
(Reversing the ends may cause no problems for many , but doing
so did cause me grief.)
2) The end plug is the Slave , the center is the Master , plugging the
Master connecter into the Slave drive will cause problems.

If you have your HDD connected to IDE Slot 1 , by itself, and the cd drives
sharing a cable connected to IDE Slot 2 ,
your Bios (modern versions) will display a message that it detected the cd
drives , If it doesn't and you're pretty sure the drives should be fine ,
buy new IDE cables, but be carefully to get IDE cables capable high data
transferes ( your owners manuel (specifically the one for the motherboard)
usually list the default cable type it ships with ).
If the bios detects everything , make sure the drives' cofig.sys entries use
the /v switch (verbose mode), and mscdex.exe's autoexec.bat entry should use
/v also.
mscdex.exe is usually rem 'ed out by windows , un-rem for these tests.
Now as each drives driver loads , each should display a loading message then
display a confirmation of finding a drive .
keeping in mind the order the drivers are listed in the config.sys file ,
does each driver detect the correct drive ?
Does 1 one of the drivers detect both drives ? ( mine does . Creatives Labs
cd,cd-r,cd-rw,dvd-r drivers are universal & work for all of thier modern
drives)
Does mscdex.exe detect both drives ?

Be careful one of the problems I originally had was my cd-rw , dvd-r &
mscdex would all detect the same drive. ( the cd-rw wast setup as Master &
dvd as cable select)

If one of the drivers does not detect a drive , the drivers MAY be
conflicting with each other.
A fact I only recently learned , you only need the drivers if you plan on
working in dos mode without windows running in the background.
So if 1 fails , try loading windows with both disabled and test the drives.
When your finnished , dont forget to rem out mscdex.exe again, You're cd-rw
maybe incompatable with mscdex when it's not loaded by windows only.


If all the drivers text output indicates all drives are being correctly
detected , while the problems exist in windows , check the device manager
settings for the drives,
if DMA if selected , deslect it , if it isn't , then select it and reboot .

Also confirm any Bios settings that refere to the cd-rom drives ( write the
settings down on paper !!!!) , try changing the settings and booting
usually an "Auto" choice will suffice).
If this fails , make sure you restore the original settings .

Search microsoft's knowledge base , or submit a request for technical help .

If nothing here has helped . Take them back and get them replaced

Aug 9, 2001, 2:51pm

Just want to add something that I do... if disabling DMA doesn't work
(System Control Panel-->Settings), then re-enable it after you get your
drives working... It helps with transfer speeds and stuff.

SW CHris

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