Lost optical drives

Peter, Did this problem arise when the external drive was added, or had it previously worked on the present system and then suddenly failed? Tony C.

Hi
The problem was intermittent previously with the 2 existing drives, but seemed to sort itself.
A 109xl was fitted to the edit comp & the external 107 was moved to this comp, coincidentally, the problem returned but then included the ext drive.

Regards.

Peter

Peter, It may help if you can give details of all devices on the problem system, and also say how they are attached and whether they are master or slave. This will probably draw a wider response from members. Tony C.

Hi

Primary Master C: drive
Primary Slave BENQ DVD rom

Secondary Master Caddy for 4 interchangeable HD`s
Secondary Slave Samsung Combi Drive

Firewire ext Pioneer 107

The original symptoms before adding the ext drive was inability to recognise a disc insertion on the 2 optical drives, this cleared up by itself, adding the ext drive caused the symptoms to reappear including the ext drive.
The BENQ was removed as it seemed to be the fault, discs were recognised for a short while but the symptoms reappeared.
The position at the moment is disc insertion recognition is random, & when recognised, Power DVD faults at error "function is unavailable" but audio discs seem to have an higher chance of being recognised.
As I mentioned before no viruses found, I have removed the last 3 items of software installed, testing after each removal.
No luck so far.

Regards.

Peter..

Peter, when you added the firewire drive, did the optical drive letters in My Computer change, or did the external drive take the next available letter?. I'm not sure what the next course of action is, but, if I was faced with the situation, I think that I would dis-connect the firewire drive, delete one of the optical drives (Benq) in device manager , let XP re-detect it, and make sure that the latest drivers are installed (assuming that you are running under Win XP). Depending on the outcome, I would repeat for the other optical drive and then re-connect the firewire drive. Tony C.

If your are using or were using Roxio Easy CD Creator (V5.03 and earlier or DirectCD version 3.01 or 3.01c), then check out this URL:
http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?id=106&object=article.cfm

Paul W. H

Hi
Thanks for the link Paul, had that problem before, got a print out I saved.

The firewire Drive took the next letter in line, but I will try the suggestion from Tony C when i get back tonight.

Regards .

Peter.

Quote from the wife "PC = pile of c*ap XP= extra problems" lol

Hi
Tried it, checked out ok, then plugged in ext drive, seems ok so far.

Thanks for the tip!!!!

Regards.

Peter.

Hi

Me & My big mouth!!!
It happened again, further testing shows that plugging the ext drive in confuses things.
The ext drive used to be on this comp anyway, but plugged into an RT.X100 firewire socket not the ads one on here, possible firewire card problem?

I had the "not recognising discs" problem before as I said but thats all sorted(thanks again).

Tempted to install the 107 in the tower instead of the BENQ or fit a Promise card & run all three drives.

Regards .

Peter

even for removable drives , i fix the drive letters to v and beyond.
that way when it returns to the same pc , it takes the same drive letter.
I also NAME every harddrive partition with a real discriptive name .... that way i can spot the removeable drive should it change letters on me.
my pendrives are always p: and named after their manufacturer i.e diskonkey

i must admit the worst drive i have is in an icybox ...... at the moment no pc sees it properly ...... either us or ieee1394 .....

Hi
As an aside I have an "ICYBOX" works fine with the 6 comps I`ve tried it on.

Update:

I uninstalled a program called "AnyDVD" trial, 2 internal drives response seemed quicker.
Connected ext drive, response better, but not 100%, changed drive letter, then realised that I had not restarted after prog removal, restarted, everything checks out ok so far (fingers crossed)
Gonna try DVD burning tomorrow

Thanks for the tips, chaps.

Regards.

Peter.

After eating 3 hard drives yesterday SCAN have accepted that my 'icybox' may in fact be faulty and it is being retrieved by courier to be looked at ..........