CD/DVD Writer freezes

[Dazzer]

I have an NEC DVD RW ND3540A and Nero software. But regularly the CD writing freezes midway through writing to a CD/DVD. It even freezes on writing to a hard drive. Why? I've a 3GHz P4 with 4Gb of Ram, surely that should be fast enough with enough memory.

It's always done this, it's just sometimes, like today, it's three failures to two sucesses. On better days it's five sucessful writes to one failure. Unfortunately to extract the ruined disc you have to reboot the computer.

Dazzer

[EzyStvy]

Does it happen on CD's or DVD's?
Does it happen with the same brand media or do you have better results with one media over the other?

[Dazzer]

Both CDs and DVDs and most of the time I use Verbatim, but the brand makes little difference. It's CDs this time. But as I said it freezes even when writing to a hard drive.

[Cricket]

Is it a IDE or SATA drive? If IDE, is the jumper set properly? Have you tried replacing the cable yet?

Have you tried it in another computer to see if the problem happens there?

:) Cricket

[Dazzer]

Cricket, thanks for the aid.

Is it a IDE or SATA drive?
It's an IDE.

If IDE, is the jumper set properly?
Aah - how should the jumper be set?


Have you tried replacing the cable yet?

Have you tried it in another computer to see if the problem happens there? Cricket
No, but I will do. It's only a 1.5 GHz with 512Mb, scrap heap reclamation job, but it does need a DVD drive.

Any recommendations for a replacement DVD/RW for this 3GHz/3Gb Ram PC?

Dazzer

[Cricket]

Aah - how should the jumper be set?Depends on the type of IDE cable in use. If it's a 40 wire IDE cable you would set it to either master (if no other drive is present) or slave (if there is another drive present and you want that drive to be master).

If it's a 80 wire IDE cable then set the jumper to CS (cable select) and put the drive on the black end connector if it's the only drive on the cable.

:) Cricket

[Dazzer]

It's the only IDE drive in the PC. All the others are SATA drives. So I should set the drive to "master"? It's probably on "slave". I'll check.

Thanks.

Dazzer

[Cricket]

So I should set the drive to "master"?If you're using a 40 wire IDE cable. If it's a 80 wire IDE cable you should use the CS (cable select) jumper setting.

:) Cricket

[glc]

Make sure the IDE channel is set to DMA. This is done in device manager.

[Dazzer]

It says "DMA if available" and is currently "Ultra DMA".

[pam123]

Do you have any games installed on the computer or anything like Rhapsody or Napster ?
If so you may be having problems with someone else's copy protection.