CD-R/W Stopped Working

[jerrkat]

I'm Running WinXP I had a HI-Val CD-RW that was causing me this problem, I upgraded to a I/O Magic CD-R/W and it worked fine for a few weeks. Now it's having the same problem.
The problem is this when ever I put a blank disc in the drive it will just sit and try to read the disc with nothing happening. This will also cause the computer to run slower. If I try to open Nero nothing happens. I can't eject the disc unless I restart the coumputer and eject before windows starts to load. Sometimes if I leave the disc in while restarting Windows will start to load and then just go to a black screen before the log in screen comes up. If I eject the disc windows will contuine loading. I'm currently using Fujifilm CD-R, I've allready burned more than half the spindle without any problems.

 

[cdogg]

It could be anything, but it does seem odd that it happened to a second drive.

Are you familiar with DMA (Direct Memory Access)? It's a setting in Windows that allows devices to access main system memory without first going through the CPU. Sometimes if that setting gets turned off or switched to something like "PIO Mode", you can take a huge performance hit kind of like the one you described.

If you go into device manager, you should be able to view the properties of the Primary or Secondary IDE controller. In there, you'll see the settings that either refer to PIO or DMA.


~cdogg
[tab]"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources"
[tab][tab]- A. Einstein

 

[jerrkat]

I've just upgrade the firmware with some software from I/O Magic. This has seemed to fix the problem.
I did check the PIO / DMA setting and it's set on if avalible DMA for all devices. It show Ultra DMA Mode 2 for the Pirmary and PIO for the Secondary on both IDE. Is this normal?

This is my IDE set up
IDE Primary
Master - CDRW
Slave - Harddrive w/ OS
IDE Secondary
Master - Harddrive
Slave - Zip Drive

Should I configure these in a different order?

 

[belrac]

A better setup would probably be :-

IDE Primary
Master - Harddrive w/ OS (C
Slave - 2nd Harddrive
IDE Secondary
Master - CDRW
Slave - Zip Drive

As you're running WinXP your HDD's are most likely ATA 100. CDRW's and Zip Drives run somewhere like ATA33 speed. Mixing these with higher speed drives causes the higher speed drive to run at the lower speed and slows HDD access dramatically.

 

[cdogg]

It is false to assume that you cannot mix ATA/33/66/100/133 on the same IDE channel without sacrificing speed on the faster drives. A lot of people out there say this, but it is not true for 99.9% of motherboards manufactured within the last 4 years. Motherboards today use something called IDT (Independent Device Timing), which allows the master or slave drive run independent from the other drive on the same channel.

However, PIO Mode is a different story. It was around before the ATA interface and is much slower. Although it is easy to mix different ATA speeds, PIO Mode sometimes forces both drives on the same IDE to use it. So, in your case, I would use the suggestions of belarc and place the CDRW device on the same channel as the Zip Drive. Not because you're worried about the hard drives running fast, but because you don't want the PIO Mode on the secondary channel to affect it.


~cdogg
[tab]"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources"
[tab][tab]- A. Einstein