Hi guys, I'm having a real problem here with copying data to my harddrive from my DVD drive and I can't seem to find any existing solution online. I seem to get a random set of problems. Sometimes I'll insert a DVD and as soon as it starts to read, my system will completely lock up, or lock up to the point that clicking on the close icon will make it change, but nothing will happen. Can't even open up task manager. Event log shows no errors. Sometimes I can access the DVD, say, after I reboot with the DVD in the drive. I recently reinstalled Windows XP SP2 in the midst of these problems, hoping that would work, but it didn't help. Surprisingly though I was able to install Windows with no apparent data copy errors what-so-ever. I've tried DMA mode and PIO mode to the same effect, although at one point I was able to copy about 2 gigs of camcorder videos from one of my DVD's in PIO mode, though it took forever and slowed my system down. Now PIO doesn't seem to have any real effect. Strangely also, normally where I am I have my desktop and laptop connected to the net wirelessly through a community wireless signal. I was getting so frustrated that I tried to copy something through a router from the DVD-ROM in my laptop to my desktop. I got the same cyclic redundancy error. So, that almost made it seem like it was the harddrive. I've run full chkdsk reboot scans on all partitions of my drive, to no avail. I'm pretty well feeling out of options here... unless there is some sort of conflict going on that I'm not aware of... or I have a bad IDE cable or something. I've installed the latest VIA drivers as well, thinking maybe it was some sort of data transfer error. Any ideas, folks? Thanks! Arlo
Definately sounds like you have a HDD failure. Are you getting "delayed write" errors for the HDD? If you have a spare HDD, throw it in as master, re-install windows on it and tranfer all kinds of stuff. It sounds like you have already eliminated the DVD drive being the culprit, so this would be the next logical step. Random thoughts.......Update the firmware for the DVD drive? Pull all cables and re-seat them all. You using IDE? Put the DVD drive as master on the secondary, and leave the HDD as master on the primary. I know that there have been issues when an optical drive and an HDD are on the same channel. It has to be pretty specific circumstances, though. Swap for new/different IDE cables. Go to the manufacturer of the drives website. Download the diagnostic program built specifically for your drive/model. It will tell you if the drive is healthy or not. Hope this helps. ~Rich
Hmmmm... first attempt = strange. I found the original IDE cable. The one I had in there originally didn't even have a tab on one side to prevent it from being put in incorrectly. Anyways, I put the two harddrives I have on one cable, set my dvdrw drive to master and put it on the second IDE. Things seemed to be okay, but slow. Tried burning (NERO) a 3.7G ISO in 8x mode and it took about 20 minutes, burning on and off. The original timer counting down the burn time hit 0 (while the total progress was at 11%), and then it suddenly went back up. Very strange. I even ejected and put the DVD+R back in again and, after burning, it seems to be okay (though I haven't installed the actual program). Geez, I can't wait till I get a new MB/CPU/RAM in a few weeks. :/ Maybe I'll need a new DVDRW too..
Are the old and new IDE cables for the DVD-rw drive the same? Sounds like you went from an 80 conductor to a 40 conductor. ~Rich
Did some research on the whole 80 wire and 40 wire cable thing. I feel like a complete noob to say that I wasn't even aware there were two different kinds of cables. My system components are only a few years old, but I think I've had these cables around forever... possibly going back to my old P2-233. They're definitely BOTH 40-wire cables. Guess I've got a lead to follow now, eh? Wish I wasn't so isolated.. I'll have to wait until at least Monday before I can try out some new cables. It's strange though, because I didn't have any problems over a year ago when I just had my desktop. I moved and used my laptop all the time and only recently got my desktop hooked back up. Thanks for keeping up with this thread! I've learned something.
