pc not recognizing cd-roms all of a sudden

[wasp]

i have 2 drives installed on an ibm 300gl (i know its old), the first is a samsung sc-148f (came with pc), the second i installed for burning , its a tdk cdrw241040b......................these both were working fine up until about a month ago, i put the cd in either one and just get a continuos flashing light, when i try to run nero while this is happening it locks up nero and i have to ctrl, alt , del to get out of it............device manager says both are working fine, when i go into my comp and try to click either one while a disc is in it i get the red error with retry or cancel option................heres the funny thing, if i fool around with them long enough, putting discs in and out, rebooting etc, sooner or later it will work, but only once, then its right back to the same crap............anyone ever seen anything like this? i even tried reinstalling nero, didnt help . im on win 98 se

[Ob1]

have you tried a different ribbon cable to connect the two to your pc? if you take the drives out of your pc and stick them in another one, do they work? if so then you know its a problem with your pc, if they dont work then the drives could be going bad.

[TwoRails]

Also try checking your jumpers. I've recently run into two burners on the same channel setup with CS instead of Master/Slave. One went bad and it caused the other to act goofy, too. I switched to Master / Slave which allowed me to isolate the bad unit, and the other worked just fine.

[wasp]

i dont have the option to stick em in another one, no i didnt try the cable, whats the chances they would both go bad at the same time? im leaning more towards something in the comp

[wasp]

Originally Posted by TwoRails Also try checking your jumpers. I've recently run into two burners on the same channel setup with CS instead of Master/Slave. One went bad and it caused the other to act goofy, too. I switched to Master / Slave which allowed me to isolate the bad unit, and the other worked just fine.

i forget where to check that? its wierd cause the main just worked, and before that the burner worked, then nothing on either..............i did notice in both the device properties and the ide controller properties that disconnect is checked for the tdk which i have set as slave, should this be this way? cause it isnt checked for the samsung................

[Ob1]

pull the drives out and check to see where the little plastic piece is located on the small jumper wires. on the drive there should be a diagram to help you figure out how to set them to master and slave

[wasp]

oh yes i know that, i installed the tdk, are you suggesting i should reverse which one is slave and master? if the master was going bad would the slave act the same way?

[Panama Red]

Originally Posted by wasp oh yes i know that, i installed the tdk, are you suggesting i should reverse which one is slave and master? if the master was going bad would the slave act the same way?

Either drive failing can cause the entire ide channel to not work properly. Try each drive by itself, jumpered as master and connected to the end connector on the cable. See if either will work by themselves.

[bailey]

if all the above fails, then you could try this.
in the device manager locate the ide controler and delete it.
then restart the computer and let windows redetect it and install the drivers fo it, this has worked for me a few times on a repaire system.

[wasp]

in device manager i have

+via bus master pci ide controller

under this i have

+primary ide controller (dual fifo) which has generic ide disk type<7 under it

+secondary ide controller (dual fifo) which has both of my drives under it

it wont let me delete the secondary , says i have to delete the parent device, will this screw with my hard drive in any way?

[bailey]

the bussmaster pci primary ide controller, is the one you want to delete, but not sure with the +via.
no doing this will not mess up your hard drives at all.

you may want to have the cd for the motherboard handy, this may be where the updated drivers are for this controller, unless its in the bios too,
it should work anyway.
windows will detect the drivers missing and reinstall them.

[glc]

Are both drives set to DMA?

You do need to test one drive at a time with the other one disconnected. I'm betting the Samsung drive has gone bad, their optical drives are not historically very reliable.

You also need to try a different IDE cable.

[wasp]

yes both are set to dma

[wasp]

well, i disconnected the samsung, put a new cable on the tdk, its set to master , on the end plug of the cable , i let windows find the ide , still, i put a blank cd in the burner and i get a flashing light and thats it..........is it pretty certain the tdk has crapped the bed? if so who makes a good burner for cheap, i always thought tdk was good stuff

[wasp]

well ,more results, this tdk burner will recognize any data disc no problem , game , software.................but a blank disc? it spits it back out 9 out of 10 times with that one in a million shot that it does recognize it,sooo, can someone suggest a good burner on the cheap, and does anyone know what goes bad inside that would cause it to not wana cooperate with blank discs?

[Panama Red]

I believe the laser for reading is separate from the writer laser. That would explain the reader working while the burner does not. Here's what I use for CD-RW. Great burner plus it comes with Nero Burning Rom software.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ubmit=Property