New DVD-R/W crashes Windows

  • Thread starter Thread starter pawihte
  • Start date Start date
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pawihte

A friend bought a Samsung DVD writer to replace his aging Sony
but couldn't get it to work properly. So he brought his computer
but I'm not having much success either. The new drive is a
Samsung SH-S223 and shows up in Device Manager.

Computer details: Sempron 64 2800+, MSI K8NGM-V mobo, 1GB DDR400,
160GB Seagate PATA, PCI TV tuner, PCI Firewire card. Win XP SP3.

Symptoms: The new DVD drive is detected in BIOS and shows up in
My Computer. Disc title (CD and DVD) is displayed, but the
computer always crashes when attempting to view the contents. The
disk activity light flashes once per second all the time. The
flashing stops if the new drive is disconnected.

The old drive can still read CDs and works normally. The new
drive works perfectly with my own computer.

This is what I've tried -
Removed TV tuner and Firewire cards
Disconnected existing DVD drive
Uninstalled tuner driver
Uninstalled Daemon Tools virtual drive
Reinstalled a Ghost backup of the OS drive, backed up a few
months ago after a fresh installation with drivers and other
apps.
Cleared the BIOS and checked the battery
Manually set PIO and DMA modes

None of the above works and the symptoms remain exactly the same.

Things are slightly better in Safe Mode. The access light still
flashes but I can view the contents of discs, but Windows
Explorer sometimes reports an error while browsing the contents.
Autorun CDs fail to initialize and sometimes crashes Windows even
in Safe Mode.

What else can I do?
Resolve possible IRQ conflict (I'm a bit hazy about this)?
Look for new mobo driver?
Flash the BIOS?
Please let me know if I've left out relevant info.
 
pawihte said:
A friend bought a Samsung DVD writer to replace his aging Sony
but couldn't get it to work properly. So he brought his computer
but I'm not having much success either. The new drive is a
Samsung SH-S223 and shows up in Device Manager.

Computer details: Sempron 64 2800+, MSI K8NGM-V mobo, 1GB DDR400,
160GB Seagate PATA, PCI TV tuner, PCI Firewire card. Win XP SP3.

Symptoms: The new DVD drive is detected in BIOS and shows up in
My Computer. Disc title (CD and DVD) is displayed, but the
computer always crashes when attempting to view the contents. The
disk activity light flashes once per second all the time. The
flashing stops if the new drive is disconnected.

The old drive can still read CDs and works normally. The new
drive works perfectly with my own computer.

This is what I've tried -
Removed TV tuner and Firewire cards
Disconnected existing DVD drive
Uninstalled tuner driver
Uninstalled Daemon Tools virtual drive
Reinstalled a Ghost backup of the OS drive, backed up a few
months ago after a fresh installation with drivers and other
apps.
Cleared the BIOS and checked the battery
Manually set PIO and DMA modes

None of the above works and the symptoms remain exactly the same.

Things are slightly better in Safe Mode. The access light still
flashes but I can view the contents of discs, but Windows
Explorer sometimes reports an error while browsing the contents.
Autorun CDs fail to initialize and sometimes crashes Windows even
in Safe Mode.

What else can I do?
Resolve possible IRQ conflict (I'm a bit hazy about this)?
Look for new mobo driver?
Flash the BIOS?
Please let me know if I've left out relevant info.
Click to expand...

I'd go to the Samsung site and download the latest ASPI driver for your
drive.
http://www.samsungodd.com/eng/

They list 4 different models of your SH-S223 drive "F, Q, B, and L" so take
a good look at the labels and such and make sure you pick the exact model as
you go down thru their menu's. They mention to download and use the latest
ASPI driver if your existing one is corrupted or you are having installation
problems.

Good luck
 
pawihte said:
A friend bought a Samsung DVD writer to replace his aging Sony
but couldn't get it to work properly. So he brought his computer
but I'm not having much success either. The new drive is a
Samsung SH-S223 and shows up in Device Manager.

Computer details: Sempron 64 2800+, MSI K8NGM-V mobo, 1GB DDR400,
160GB Seagate PATA, PCI TV tuner, PCI Firewire card. Win XP SP3.

Symptoms: The new DVD drive is detected in BIOS and shows up in
My Computer. Disc title (CD and DVD) is displayed, but the
computer always crashes when attempting to view the contents. The
disk activity light flashes once per second all the time. The
flashing stops if the new drive is disconnected.

The old drive can still read CDs and works normally. The new
drive works perfectly with my own computer.

This is what I've tried -
Removed TV tuner and Firewire cards
Disconnected existing DVD drive
Uninstalled tuner driver
Uninstalled Daemon Tools virtual drive
Reinstalled a Ghost backup of the OS drive, backed up a few
months ago after a fresh installation with drivers and other
apps.
Cleared the BIOS and checked the battery
Manually set PIO and DMA modes

None of the above works and the symptoms remain exactly the same.

Things are slightly better in Safe Mode. The access light still
flashes but I can view the contents of discs, but Windows
Explorer sometimes reports an error while browsing the contents.
Autorun CDs fail to initialize and sometimes crashes Windows even
in Safe Mode.

What else can I do?
Resolve possible IRQ conflict (I'm a bit hazy about this)?
Look for new mobo driver?
Flash the BIOS?
Please let me know if I've left out relevant info.
Click to expand...

I don't know if this will help you, but check the ribbon cable
type. Ribbon cables come in 40 wire and 80 wire type. The 80 wire
ones use thinner wires. On the 80 wire cable, every second wire
is a ground signal, giving improved signal quality. If the problem
is signal integrity, I'd try a modern 80 wire cable and see if it
helps.

It could always be an issue with the info the drive is sending,
so it could be some other problem.

I got all my 80 wire cables, back when retail hard drives
came in a box, and included a cable with each drive. Those
cables are great, for replacing the 40 wire cables that come
with the motherboard.

Paul
 
Paul said:
I don't know if this will help you, but check the ribbon cable
type. Ribbon cables come in 40 wire and 80 wire type. The 80
wire
ones use thinner wires. On the 80 wire cable, every second wire
is a ground signal, giving improved signal quality. If the
problem
is signal integrity, I'd try a modern 80 wire cable and see if
it
helps.

It could always be an issue with the info the drive is sending,
so it could be some other problem.

I got all my 80 wire cables, back when retail hard drives
came in a box, and included a cable with each drive. Those
cables are great, for replacing the 40 wire cables that come
with the motherboard.

Paul
Click to expand...

Sorry, I forgot to mention that the new drive is SATA and the old
one is PATA.
 
pawihte said:
Sorry, I forgot to mention that the new drive is SATA and the old
one is PATA.
Click to expand...

Do you have a spare hard drive ? Maybe you could do a fresh install
of your OS on the spare, install whatever application software you'd normally
test with, and verify it works that way. I leave the computer
disconnected from the Internet, don't activate WinXP, and run
it long enough to do my tests. If that works, then that increases
the odds there is still something wrong with what is on the old C: .

The test install process itself would be a partial verification, if
you use the optical drive to do the install. Copying over some
of the 5000 files on the CD is a good test. And during the initial
part of the install, you have a much simplified OS running (so more
likely to show pure hardware issues).

I also test with my Linux LiveCD (Knoppix) - if two OSes show
the same bad hardware symptoms, then I have some idea my new
hardware is defective. I used that to diagnose one bad
motherboard here. My favorite version, is version
5.3.1 - unfortunately, that one comes in DVD size only,
so it is a huge download (more than 4GB). (I have about
four versions, three CDs and one DVD.) The burning program
K3B is included on 5.3.1, which can be used for burner testing.
The boot time option "testcd", does a checksum on the files
on the CD, which is a way to test read most of the CD.

http://knoppix.net/wiki/Cheat_Codes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K3b

Paul
 
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