DVD drive stopped reading CD-Rs

[Tripredacus]

I installed a new hard drive for my friend and afterwards his DVD drive stopped reading CD-Rs. He had previously backed up all his files to CD-Rs because he did not have enough hard drive space. Then he bought a new hard drive and was going to transfer the files back, but now can't read any of those discs. It can read pressed CDs however.

Previously, the DVD drive was connected via ATAPI using a 40pin cable and another (non-working) DVD drive was on the chain. Both drives were set for cable select. I removed the broken drive and mounted a new 250GB WD ATA HDD into the 5.25" drive bay by using a bracket. I connected the HDD to the IDE port (and the working DVD drive) using a new 40pin IDE cable. I set the DVD drive to slave and the HDD to master.

At first glance it seemed like everything was fine. It was not able to read the CD-R that was already in the drive but that disc was scratched. It was able to read a music CD so I figured it was fine.

The computer is an old Dell with Windows XP.

I considered that part of the issue could be that the DVD drive is now a slave, however the interior of the chassis does not allow for a hard drive to be installed anywhere else, does not support SATA and slaving the new HDD to the existing one would require a longer than spec IDE cable.

Any ideas?

[jaclaz]

Any ideas?

"Idea" may be a too ambitious definition , but I would try another tested working DVD drive before anything else.

If the drive can read pressed (data) CD's but not "burned" ones it is very likely to be something "internal" of the drive (and not cable/cable selext/master/slave) IMHO.

jaclaz

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Certainly you're right it is from the channel and position change. The registry entries are apparently not getting updated for some reason.

An 80-wire ribbon correct? You mentioned 40 pin but both 40/80 wire have the same 40 pin IDE connector. Make sure it is the fine 80 wire, blue end in motherboard, and not the thick 40 wired ribbon. The BIOS might be defaulting to some legacy IDE mode and passing the wrong data for the IDE devices to Windows.

After verifying the jumpers and cables and positions, here is what I would do ...

Delete the optical in device manager ( but not the HDD or controllers ), shut down. Flush the CMOS ( pull the battery to be sure ). Reconnect battery, boot and then go straight into the BIOS and autodetect the IDE drives including the empty channels. Then look for dumb Dell duhfault settings that forget to check "use DMA", or automatically checked "Cable Select" and get rid of that. Examine all BIOS options. It might need manual setting to UDMA. The drive order might be wrong too. Also look for any settings that hide the BIOS messages in case something important gets displayed. Look for "reset configuration data" or similar wording and enable it. Save the BIOS settings, let Windows re-enumerate the optical. It might take a couple of reboots, with a few more visits into the BIOS to see what sticks. Note, when I pull the battery I always test it. Less than 2.8 volts is asking for trouble. A new one should read 3.x volts. Do it now or else you will be back later.

Since this is Windows XP it should be fixable from this method. On Win9x I would go straight to pulling the IDE registry entries and hand editing them as its cfgmgr32 seems hit or miss when changing around ATAPI devices.

[Tripredacus]

Yes I meant 80-wire. I will try some things out when I go there again and report back.

[bphlpt]

I hate to mention it, but I assume he verified his data was readable on the CD-R's when he originally burned them?

Cheers and Regards

[Ponch]

Few ideas;

-as bphlpt suggestes, it is possible that all those burned CDs are actually unreadable-> test few of them on an other PC.

-for the HDD to perform optimally, it has to be at the end of the 80 wires cable.

-Is there only 1 IDE connector on the motherboard ? If not, you could use the old 40 wires cable for the DVD.

-can you check both drives are appearing correctly and enabled in Bios (that could also explain the former 2nd DVD drive "not working").

-also check the properties of the controller in "Device Manager", primary and secondary devices (in Windows).

-always double check the IDE connectors are fully pushed in on all 3 connections.

-If I understand, that DVD drive has not been physically moved in the computer, so you can rule out a shock that would cause hardware defect from the operation (but the whole computer has been moved)?

Good luck.

[Tripredacus]

The HDD is at the end. I remembered that part about IDE at least.

There are 2 IDE connectors on the board. The case, being a Dell, is not ideal for hard disk expansion. There is only 1 HDD bay, 1 floppy and 2 5.25" bays. The second DVD drive that was not working was due to... um... physical damage. (It didn't open one day and the guy used a knife to get his CD out... )

Technically, the "working" DVD drive was moved. I had to take it out in order to properly align the bracketted HDD into teh 5.25" bay. The user had purchased the parts himself but did not get the recommended bracket. The one I recommended would have made the HDD the size of an ODD but whatever. So it is possible that this drive was damaged while the case was open. I can still test it on its own and with the original cable.

Due to orientation (taking into account IDE cable lengths) the only place to put an additional HDD was into the 5.25" bay. And then, the only way it could connect was to the DVD drive. In order to have both HDDs on the same cable would have required using one longer than the ATA spec allows. I know they make them (why, who knows) but since I'm the "pointman" for problems with his computers, I'd rather not take shortcuts on fixing it.

[Tripredacus]

Oops, I forgot to update this. In the BIOS, the secondary slave was set to disabled, but enabling it did not help. Neither did removing and redetecting the device. Interestingly enough, Windows had a 0x7B STOP error when trying to boot in Safe Mode.

I ended up replacing the drive. I did not test the original drive to see if it is a drive problem, maybe I can remember to pick it up tomorrow.

[Ponch]

If the drive can read pressed (data) CD's but not "burned" ones it is very likely to be something "internal" of the drive (and not cable/cable selext/master/slave) IMHO.

Few ( ) years ago,music from audio CDs was transmitted to the computer through an additional thin cable connected to the audio output of optical drives. I think that cable was not needed anymore starting Win2k (or was it ME) but I'm not sure it could still work that way or not with later OSs.The motherboard had to have that connector as well. It could be that yours was "working" like that (for audio only)? Have you tried a pressed (data) CD ?

[Tripredacus]

If the drive can read pressed (data) CD's but not "burned" ones it is very likely to be something "internal" of the drive (and not cable/cable selext/master/slave) IMHO.

Few ( ) years ago,music from audio CDs was transmitted to the computer through an additional thin cable connected to the audio output of optical drives. I think that cable was not needed anymore starting Win2k (or was it ME) but I'm not sure it could still work that way or not with later OSs.The motherboard had to have that connector as well. It could be that yours was "working" like that (for audio only)? Have you tried a pressed (data) CD ?

It wasn't. Or if it was, then the cable was not there. I know what cable you mean because my Win98 PC uses such a thing. But even if it were the case, Windows would still detect that a disc was in the drive, you just would not have any sound.