CD/DVD-Rom lockup

[The Hidden]

Hi first of all!

I hope you can at least give me some suggestions what could be my
problem. Here goes:

I've got the HP Pavilion ze4400 notebook. When i boot it sometimes
takes a very long time to get past BIOS. It just doesnt do anything.
Then, after approx 1 minute it goes on as usual, boots windows xp
(Professional / no SPs installed).

However when Windows is started the computer freezes after a while for
1 minute. When it starts working again my CD/DVD-Rom Drive is gone
from the Hardware list i can't open it anymore or access it. When i
boot with the Drive opened it boots normally and doesnt freeze at
all. But as soon as i close the drive, same thing happens. The driver
is fine.

I noticed I had Virtual Clone Drive installed or at least got the
driver somewhere.. (from CloneCD) so i deinstalled CloneCD completely
because i read somewhere that this problem could be caused by another
application completely accessing the Drive.

I also noticed that my only SCSI/RAID-Controller driver was this
ominous Virtual Clone Drive Driver.
I guess my CD/DVD-Rom drive is runnin on SCSI instead of IDE since
Linux once notified me of a SCSI problem @ hardware scan on boot.

To me it looks like the Drive just looses power. That's why the
computer freezes a CD/DVD-Rom drive is no plug&play device after
all. But i dunno what really could be the problem. I'll try to
install an SCSI/RAID-Controller Driver now from my HP Disc. (don't
have any driver atm installed [EDIT: just noticed i can't install
from my HP Disc because my drive doesn't work LOL! Stupid me ])

The drive worked when i got the laptop.. now since around 3 months it
doesnt work nemore.. It just sucks!
I start the laptop with the drive open, I insert a game-CD, Autoplay
starts, Setup starts, but as soon as the Setup tries to install data
from the CD the laptop freezes and after a minute - *poof* Drive is
gone. Doesn't show up @ explorer ne more or in the hardware list.
Setup Error - Canceled lol. I can't install anything or read any data
from a cd.

thx

 

[Bill Eversole]

Sounds like your CD/DVD-ROM drive has gone bad. I have seen long pauses in
BIOS when BIOS is trying to auto detect the drive, and lockups in Windows
when Windows tries to read the drive.

Also check the drive settings in CMOS to make sure the IDE ports are set to
Auto. Delete any User settings for secondary IDE ports.

Hope this helps.

Bill

 

[The Hidden]

thx 4 the help but:
my bios sux.. i can't change anything really important!

all i can do is set passwords etc. but there's not even a menu
category for things like ide or internal peripherals..

would a bios update help? afaik bios updates just improve
compatibility. they can't improve the way the bios let's you change
things. i guess i'd need a new bios chip.. lol.. nah there must be a
better way to access the hardware settings..

 

[The Hidden]

... don't like to do this... but still..


AND UP! :roll:

 

[The Hidden]

any other ideas? i need my laptop 4 school i can't send it back to the
manufacturer 4 repair.

thx

 

[JAD]

remove the DVD from the device manager and reboot
Is there an option to reset the CMOS? manual gives no reference to the bios settings available?
Does the Long pause happen when there is a disk in the drive or not at boot?
Clone CD was a legit copy? or demo or cracked. Cracked? there is a bunch of versions that are tainted with non destructive,
mischievous virii. Legit? check under device manager in 'Hard disk controllers' or 'disk drives' and see if that 'virtual drive'
doesn't still exist.

HTH

 

[The Hidden]

i noticed it has to be some kind of hardware fault linux has got the
same problem.

also i've got another problem now

when playing age of empires 2 (yes i still play this crappy old game
since everyone @ school can play it even with the oldest laptop alive
)
after playing some time the game crashes and the screen shows some
wierd effect. it seems as if the top pixel row is pulled down to the
bottom of the screen. could be the gfx card sending the same signal
all the time. i tried to play without my accu and the problem
disappeared.. (well i only tried it once actually but i will try it
again 2day a few times) i dont care about the gfx issue but i thought
it might be a power problem.

that would explain the cd rom problems as well because the way it
crashes looks like its loosing power. (since my hardware manager says
its a microsoft power supply i'm actually pretty sure its a power
problem :roll

if it is the power supply what could be the problem? i can't believe
the power supply is too weak.. it's a laptop after all and i don't
think the manufacturer would install an inappropiate power supply. on
the other hand side - 1300€ notebook from HP....

I'm now trying to use my CD/DVD-ROM drive without the accu. If it
works it really is a power supply problem and I'm really angry @ HP
:twisted