PCA Forums

OK...I have given advice a few times here, but this one has me stumped. I thought my DVD writer
had taken a dump, because it refused to write a DVD. The Hard drive would just hang forever when I attemped to write a DVD, and I would have to shut off the computer to unfreeze it. I bought a new DVD writer, even though the one I had was new...and guess what?...I won't write a DVD either. I had it as the master on the secondary IDE and the DVD-rom as master on the primary IDE (I have a SATA hard drive)
So I switched it to the master on the Primary and the DVD-rom as slave on the primary...not using the secondary at all.The DVD-rom still reads and works perfectly and the DVD writer still won't write. Worse, is that Windows XP doesn't even see the DVD writer in "My Computer"...it still sees the Zip-drive that was on the primary IDE with the DVD-rom. I've tried using a different software to burn with...and tried changing the IDE cables from a known working computer...still, when I try to use the DVD writer, the hard drive light comes on and stays on and the system locks up. If'n I had hair, I woulda pulled it out by now.

Try removing all associated devices in Device Manager and then rebooting and see if it finds anything. Also make sure it is jumpered correctly and that the BIOS sees it. If the drive is jumpered for Cable Select and it's a UDMA33 cable (40 pin) then it won't work properly. When you say harddrive light do you mean the LED that is hooked into the motherboard? That isn't actually a "hard-drive" light but an IDE activity light. If your HD is SATA and the LED only shows the onboard IDE activity then it's not the harddrive but the actual DVD burner. Make sure the BIOS sees the drive before you write it off as a Windows problem. Also check the IDE channel settings in Device Manager and see what it says for Transfer mode.

I did try uninstalling both drives, and windows re-installed them both...no changes. The cable is an 80 pin cable and both drives are set to master and slave according to their place on the cable. the bios correctly identifies both drives as does device manager...with one small exeption. It lists both drives on the ultraATA primary channel as SCSI devices....and has done this since installing windows, which I thought was odd, but didn't seem to make any difference to the DVD-rom. As I said, both drives are new and work fine in my other computer which I also built the same way as this one with the exception of the SATA hard drive....and yes I did mean the activity LED on the case front.....I would give up and re-install windows, except I have no way to back up my data.

What motherboard? If it's a NForce 1/2/3/4 motherboard I would suggest uninstalling and then reinstalling the Unified Driver Package and when you reinstall say No to the nVidia IDE driver thing. That could be the problem and I have personally had a similar problem with bad burns using the IDE driver that nVidia has. You're fine and arguably better off without it anyways.

Some other suggestions:

It's possible that the problem is your DVD-Rom drive is the culprit. Even though it works, it may be interfering with other devices on the IDE bus. Have you tried the DVD Burner by itself?

Many mobos have issues with a CD or DVD drive being connected as a Master. Try connecting just the DVD burner for starters (leave the CD-Rom disconnected for now) as the Slave on either IDE channel. Make sure there's nothing else connected to any IDE channel.

If that works then try adding any additional IDE devices ONE BY ONE. Setup the DVD-Rom as the slave on the other channel.

Are you running any background apps that could conceivably be interfering with the burner? Are you using a DLA application (allows Windows to treat the burner as a floppy) like DirectCD or Nero's version? Try disabling it or uninstalling it. Maybe it needs to be upgraded to support your burner.

Running any CD Emulators like Alchohol 120's or Daemon Tools? Try disabling it. May be interfering or may need an upgrade.

If this is an nForce mobo then you can manually set the transfer mode of the IDE channel that the burner is connected to. Open the properties for the IDE controller in Device Manager, select the channel and set the transfer mode. If it's running in DMA 2 try DMA 1 and see if that helps. It'll be slower but may be more reliable and would tell us something.

Hope this helps...

FP....thanks for the advice...I'll try connecting one thing at a time to see if that works. I'm not really running any background apps that would likely interfere with my burner...just bare minimum...AV..firewall...lexmark software and sidewinder software for a game controller...and Pestpatrol.
My mobo is a MSI K8TNeo2 (VIA K8T800 pro chipset)..its fairly new with the newest bios.

I can't believe 2 brand new burners would both be defective......if the system runs OK with just one device thats fine, I don't really need the extra drive.

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Update:
OK, this is almost funny now. If it were someone else, it would be. I tried 2 different DVD writers in my computer at every different position imagineable. I tried countless combinations of cables and C/M/S settings.
I backed up my data by writing 10 CDs....Oh yeah, it'll write CDs....just not DVDs. I re-installed windowsXP
IT WILL NOT WORK. I went upstairs and wrote a DVD on my wifes computer, watched the DVD from start to finish, took the writer out of her computer and put it in mine.....it won't work. I set it exactly the same....it can't even READ a DVD!!!...the system locks up. I restarted the computer....took out the DVD and put it in the regular DVD-rom....it spun up and opened up my music archive..no problem. WTF!!??
I would say the motherboard has a fried section, but how can a DVD-rom work and the DVD writer not even read a DVD. At this point I'm thinking that I either accept the fact that it will never write a DVD, and live with it...or go insane and buy a new motherboard and spend another 20 hours trying to figure this out.