CDR drive periodically stops working

[aspen]

I have CDR drive - used to work fine then stopped working. I could see it in My Computer and in device manager but it would not burn or play CD's. The light would come on when the CD hit the tray, but then nothing. Changed the ribbon and it started working fine, for a while. Then it stopped again with the same symptoms. Changed it from primary slave to Secondary master and it worked fine. Then it stopped working again - same problem. I can't figure out why it keeps doing that. HELP!!!

[ephmynus]

Hmm... sounds like it could be a few things but the first thing I would look into is your IDE port. I have seen these go out eventually and give the same symptoms you are seeing. Also, the drive itself going out is not unreasonable. First, I'd hook it up to your primary chain to see what happens.

[confus-ed]

If it was the IDE contoller failing then his hd wouldn't work either. Try forcing the drive to use PIO mode in bios and see what happens, ripping and such stuff might not work but try and see if you can get access.

I suspect some chipset patch is enabling the dma functions on the CD, and you are getting some kind of problem relating to that.

[ephmynus]

[quote]Originally posted by confus-ed:
<strong>If it was the IDE contoller failing then his hd wouldn't work either. Try forcing the drive to use PIO mode in bios and see what happens, ripping and such stuff might not work but try and see if you can get access.

I suspect some chipset patch is enabling the dma functions on the CD, and you are getting some kind of problem relating to that.</strong><hr></blockquote>


This isn't necessarily true as you have two separate IDE controllers. I have had many instances where the secondary chain will eventually degrade until it does not work anymore, all the while the primary is par.

[aspen]

I have two IDE's on M-board. It was originally on the 1st IDE as secondary drive, now on 2nd IDE as primary drive. Have the problem both ways, although every other drive is working (HD & regular CD drive).

[confus-ed]

So its not the controller then, looking like the cdr is duff, if your cd rom works on either channel its probably not drivers either. Can you try out the cdr somewhere else to be sure?