CD Drive not recognized

  • Thread starter Thread starter LadyDungeness
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LadyDungeness

I've got a Sony laptop with an external CD/DVD drive. It's Firewire. I hooked it up and it powers up and whirs, but the
laptop won't recognize it. What should I do?


Lady Dungeness
Out of Danger until September
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
 
Let's try that again -- I cannot SEE the CD drive under Device Manager. The drive itself powers up and whirs. The computer
does not recognize it. So I cannot right-click on it and check properties.

How do I get the computer to SEE the CD drive?


Lady Dungeness
Out of Danger until September
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
 
Good idea, but it won't work on a different computer. It's firewire, and the plug-in is an obsolete two-prong thing that
Sony made for a little while; not a standard firewire hookup. The CD drive itself is working fine. It's the computer that
won't recognize it. I need help with that.


Lady Dungeness
Out of Danger until September
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
 
Let's try that again -- I cannot SEE the CD drive under Device Manager. The drive itself powers up and whirs. The computer
does not recognize it. So I cannot right-click on it and check properties.

How do I get the computer to SEE the CD drive?


Lady Dungeness
Out of Danger until September
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Click to expand...

Is it this one ?

http://www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/PCOM/Acc/PCGA-CRWD1/index.html

The adapter cable with four objects on it, has a 4 pin Firewire,
some kind of power connector, and two prongs or mechanical support.
So as far as the computer is concerned, it will interface via
Firewire, and then from there, via SCSI protocol (SBP2 or something?),
it'll show up as a storage device.

Since there are two potential power sources, I can't tell if both
power sources must be present, or the second one is optional. It
could be, when that drive is connected to a non-Sony product, you
use the separate power adapter (and still use the 4 pin Firewire).
If using a Sony laptop with proper interface, then you can use a
power outlet on the Sony laptop, as well as the Firewire.

So the question would be, is there any way to tell if something is
present on a Firewire interface. I never did find a utility that
can do the job, at least in Windows. On the Mac, there is a
dandy representation in the System Info application, that will show a
Firewire tree if one is present.

First thing to do, is make sure the Firewire on the computer is
enabled, and is working properly. Firewire ports have been known
to croak, but that is more likely with the 6 pin variety (which has
two power pins, of the 6 pins present). The 4 pin, being 4 data pins
in total, carries no power of its own. I'd start by looking in
Device Manager, and see whats up.

Paul
 
Paul,
This CD player does not have a connection for a separate power source. It can get power only through the Sony laptop.
It is getting power.
You suggested I look in Device Manger. Here's what I see:

IEEE 1394 Bus hose controllers
(and under that) -- Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller

Now what?


Lady Dungeness
Out of Danger until September
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
 
Paul,
This CD player does not have a connection for a separate power source. It can get power only through the Sony laptop.
It is getting power.
You suggested I look in Device Manger. Here's what I see:

IEEE 1394 Bus hose controllers
(and under that) -- Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller

Now what?


Lady Dungeness
Out of Danger until September
Click to expand...

OK, I can test a similar configuration. I happen to have a Firewire
enclosure, and a spare CDROM drive. And a screwdriver, as some
assembly required.

I've enabled my Firewire chip, and plugged in the enclosure. I have

IEEE 1394 Bus host controllers
VIA OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Controller
(drivers = 1394bus.sys, ohci1394.sys)

I also have an extra storage entry.

DVD/CD-ROM drives
ADS Technologies_ Inc. 1394 Storage+Repeater IEEE 1394 SBP2 Device
(drivers = cdrom.sys, redbook.sys, storprop.dll)

*******
The only remotely interesting entry in Everest, is this enumeration for the drive.
I found this line, in the Report you can generate from the menu.

SBP2\ADS_Technologies__Inc.__&1394_Storage+Repeater___&CmdSetId104d8

There is a reference here, to "104d8" being "Authoring Support". So maybe
that is ATAPI packet or something. Even though this optical drive is
not a burner, it still uses the packet interface.

http://www.geek.com/problems-with-firewire?key=0c04719915bb1dad0046abd3ed5771b1

*******
Using Sisoftware Sandra Lite, the "Physical Disk" interface is able to see
what is inside the enclosure, whereas Everest couldn't give any details
about what was down there. But Sandra cannot list the details for the
CDROM drive, such as what media formats it supports. I suppose if I
had Nero on here, I could make further progress, via the Nero Infotool.
But Nero is on the other computer.

Matshita CD-ROM CR-588

You can get Sandra Lite here. The download link is at the bottom of the
"Lite" feature column. Do not download this, if you are already running
a paid-for version of Sandra (just in case). It could botch your
licensed version.

http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/index.html?dir=&location=downandbuy&langx=en&a=

*******

That is it for now. I'm going to boot Linux now, and see what gets
listed there. So if Sisoftware Sandra can't list the name of the cdrom
mechanism inside that Firewire enclosure, then it may be dead.

Paul
 
Well, Linux wasn't any help. It could mount a data CD without
too much trouble, but couldn't play an audio CD on the Firewire
enclosed CDROM. Windows had the same problem, but put up a
dialog box when I went to turn on DAE for the drive, stating it
might not work too well. So at least Windows realized the protocol
layers on Firewire, would not be transparent. Probably needs
another protocol stack to do that.

I also didn't see any other interesting utilities on Linux,
with respect to Firewire, so no utility there for listing
what is on the Firewire interface. So I guess Sandra is the only
option so far.

Paul
 
Well, I was having the same problem for about a week, until today. I
reinstalled the optical drive I was going to use in my new DIY PC, and went
into BIOS and went to drives. I was getting a message or prompt or wtf
everytime I booted the PC saying drive not recognized, press F1 to continue
or F2 for Setup. I'd press F1 and continue. I thought it was the parallel
cable strap I was using, in the wrong positon. But no, it was that the second
optical drive wasn't recognized in BIOS. I had to enable the primary slave
drive. When I did that, the F1 and F2 messages stopped during booting.
Now both drives work and no problems.
Good Luck,
attilathehun1
 
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