insufficient system resources

[dragongirl]

I am trying to install a dvd drive. I run the Found New Hardware wizard and get an error message that there are insufficient system resources to complete the task. I rebooted and shut down as many programs as possible (mcafee, zone alarm, etc). I have .5 GB RAM.

Any ideas?

[chuck4456]

We don't know anything about your system and OS. Details please.

[glc]

You do not have to run the add hardware wizard to install a DVD drive. It uses native Windows ATAPI drivers.

[dragongirl]

system info: os=windows xp sp2; hdd is about half full; what else is relevant? I'm at work now - tell me what details are needed and I'll post tonight when I go home.

I know that I don't have to run the New Hardware wizard, but when I first installed the dvd drive (to replace one that went belly up), windows didn't know about it at all. BIOS did but not windows. Not in My Computer and not in Device Manager. I searched the kb and found some tidbits. I deleted some entries from the registry - per their instructions - and now it knows about the drive and it tried to run the wizard. With the error I gave.

Behavior is that the drive kind of works, but it won't do auto-run at all. And recognizing disks is somewhat sporatic.

But now I've the Insufficient System Resources message in other instances (such as installing apps) as well, so I'm not sure it is related to the dvd drive at all. I've searched (googled) to find info on system resources, but all I keep finding is stuff about windows 95/98/me, which is different.

Thanx for all your advice....

[Cricket]

What kind of computer is this? Home built or name brand?

How is the DVD burner jumper set? Master, slave or CS? Check the old drive jumper and set the new drive jumper to the same setting.

What kind of IDE cable is connected to the DVD burner? 40 wire or 80 wire?

:) Cricket

[rjfvillarosa]

Did you set the jumper on the back of the new drive to the same position as the jumper on the old drive? it shouldn't make much difference, also what do you mean when you said the old drive stopped working? are you sure this is not a cable fault and the old drive was ok?





gotta learn to type faster.

[dragongirl]

Right now the dvd drive is master (and a cd-w drive is slave), but I've tried it every which way. I set the jumper to master, but I've also tried CS for both.

Since the drive is kind of working (except for auto-run and occassionally not recognizing the disk), and since I'm getting the Not Enough System Resources message for things other than installing the driver for the dvd, I'm thinking that my problem is not with the drive.

My frustration is that I can't seem to find any info on what exactly are "system resources" for xp, how are they used/set/tweaked, etc. I've found some articles on 95/98/me, but nothing for xp. My memory usage is not peaking, I have plenty of hd space available, my page file is set to 1.5 x RAM... What else should I be looking at?

oh - someone asked what went wrong with the old drive. It won't open. Even manually (with a paperclip in the little bitty hole).

again thanx for any advice!

[rjfvillarosa]

Do you have a spare IDE cable you can try?

[dragongirl]

yes I do. I'll swap them out tonight when I get home. Is it common for the cables to go bad? I hadn't really considered that...

[rjfvillarosa]

It isn't common for them to go bad but what usually happens is people pull on the cable instead of the plug when disconnecting them and this can cause the contacts in the plug to loose contact with the conductor in the cable.

[dragongirl]

ok - I'm very convinced now that this is not a hardware problem. I swapped the old dvd drive back in and Windows doesn't recognize it either. (The original problem was that the drive wouldn't open, not that Windows didn't see it). I've swapped cables with another computer. I've tried every combination of master/slave/cs. And, I'm getting the "insufficient system resources" message when installed software and updating Windows. I am going to re-post this question on a non-hardware thread.

Thank you everyone for your help and suggestions. See you in another thread...

[rjfvillarosa]

Can you give me a little information about the motherboard?
What motherboard is it, how much ram and what make, what processor are you using?

[dragongirl]

I'm not sure about the mb. It's a stock HP Pavilion machine. How do I find out what you are asking? I can look on the memory chips for the ram info, but not sure about the mb.

[rjfvillarosa]

If it is unaltered from new give me the model number and I can look up the specifications on the HP web site.

[dragongirl]

It's an HP Pavilion a220n. Looking at the faceplate it says AMD Athlon XP processor 2600+ (2.08 GHz). 512 MB RAM DDR SDRAM. And NVidia GeForce 4 MX graphics with 64 MB DDR shared video memory.

[rjfvillarosa]

You have more than enough resources there to operate your drive, in the other thread you have it was suggested that you increase the page file size, to be honest I would be more inclined to run Memtest86 on your RAM memory, you can download it here.
http://www.memtest.org/ scroll down the page and download version 1.65 "precompiled package for floppy".
If I remember you just double click it when it downloads and it will want to create a bootable floppy disk, make the floppy and reboot your machine with the floppy in the drive, then follow the onscreen instructions to test your RAM memory.

[dragongirl]

ok - this may take awhile! I'll post the results...