DVD/CD RW problem

Next time you have a disk stuck in a drive, don't take it apart! 8O

There is a tiny hole on the drive fascia. Push a pin or opened up paperclip into the hole, and hey presto!  

thanks for the advice, but of course i did try this first.

the disc was jammed in such a way that it had got stuck above the cd tray. the disc and tray were colliding in such a way that it was physically impossible for the tray to slide out. so yeah i had no choice but to unscrew it, and reposition the disc so I could allow the tray to move properly.

given that it still reads discs I can't imagine that i've somehow damaged the hardware or the laser. i just can't understand why it won't go back to DMA tho  

That doesn't unjam anthing, it just opens it up manually in case the drive locks up (or isn't powered on)...

This link appears to have a legit article talking about the WinXP PIO bug that goes quite in-depth with a healthy dose of l33t sp34k and n00b bashing It was actually the very first result from a google search of: winxp pio dma ide since I didn't remember the reghack. Also note that it would have saved you the exersize of someone replying with advice that was as wrong as it was unhelpful if you had looked it up yourself  
http://users.bigpond.net.au/ninjaduck/itserviceduck/udm...

Also, if your system drive is on the secondary IDE channel with your optical drive you might want to make it the master device on the primary channel (it's supposed to be slightly faster and should also fix the slow bootup problem). It also might resolve a problem with two devices trying to share a channel as discussed in the article I linked above.

However, if windows is constantly putting your drive back to PIO mode and uninstalling and reintalling the IDE drivers no longer resolves the problem (the article talks about this also) it might be because it was damaged when you took it apart and put it back together. If none of those things help you might try taking the drive apart again and see if you futzed something up last time and see if you can fix it.

GL, let us know how it goes, and if you find some other solution please let us know about that also.

Unfortunately the reg hack did not work.

Regarding IDE stuff: My system drive is SATA. The DVD drive is the only component running off the dual channel IDE port, and i've tried both sockets along the cable.

The windows boot up problem is definatly related to the DVD drive, unplug the drive completely and the system loads up fine. Occasionally loading up with the dvd drive plugged in causes long system lock ups, like its taking a long time to access data.

So basically there is something to do with either the DVD drive or the IDE cable or IDE settings that is causing both PIO mode only as well as effecting the SPEED at which the SATA drive transfers.

I'm stumped. Hopefully later this week I'll get my hands on another dvd drive to see if it still happens.

Wait, if the DVD drive is the only thing on the on the IDE channel and your system drive is on a SATA channel that does not really point towards a defective cable or drive. If a drive on an IDE channel is affecting performance of a drive on a SATA channel something is fubared either in the system drivers or in the chipset on the mobo itself. Idle devices on the IDE channels should not impact the performance of the SATA drive. BROKEN devices on the IDE channel should not affect the performance of devices on the SATA channel. Either the OS is screwing up all of your IO trying to deal with either messed up drivers, a messed up controller, or a messed up device (in order of probability) or the controller itself is messed up.

While it's possible that a messed up drive could cause a cascade of problems that could affect system performance this is not a problem PIO is causing, rather I would suspect that being stuck in PIO mode is just another symptom of a bigger problem.

When you checked the registry it was set to PIO, right? And you fixed it and when you booted up again it was already set to PIO even though you hadn't put any disks in the drive?

- Boot up with the DVD drive plugged in then check the system events log (right-click my computer > manage > event viewer > system) and check for errors pertaining to any drives or IO controllers (you might want to try doing this right after you've uninstalled the drivers).
- Update drivers and firmware for all drives and controllers (yes, I know, they worked before. But if they somehow became corrupt this should fix the problem without having to buy new hardware.) Also, when updating your BIOS reset it to default settings (you can tweak them again later after the system is at least working properly).
- Try a different optical IDE drive (preferably a DVD drive).
- Try a different cable with both the new drive and the old drive.


If none of that works I'd say try reinstalling windows as a last ditch effort (that shouldn't accomplish anything we haven't already done but it doesn't cost money and pretty much rules out software problems as the cause). You don't need to wipe the drive for this test, just install it in a different folder or partition or drive, (in reverse order of safety of your data) depending on your knowlege, comfort level, and how much trouble you're willing to go through. If that doesn't work seriously consider a new mobo and/or SATA optical drive (there are now a number of SATA optical drives available in the $20-$50 range).

This is an intriguing problem, keep us posted. You might have a magical drive here, the perfect thing to leave sitting out at a LAN party for someone to steal or as a gag gift :twisted:

Remember: Hardware that is working properly operates as designed. Broken hardware can do anything. I predict that the worlds first time machine will be a broken electronic appliance.

edit: nevermind, i'll re-edit this in a bit with some updates.