Problem with a DVD/CD drive

[The Petries]

I'd appreciate any advice about a problem I am having with my DVD/CD
drive since I upgraded from XP to Vista Home Premium. MY desktop is an
HP Pavillion a1250n with a "HP DVD Writer 740b ATA Device" according to
the Device Manager.

Everything worked like a charm under XP but once I upgraded to Vista I
have had a strange problem with the drive. If I insert an audio CD I can
play it and/or copy it to Itunes. I can also go into Windows Explorer
and display the contents of the CD. If I insert a CD with photos or
program files, Windows Explorer will freeze up if I try to display the
contents. The lockup is so hard that I end up having to pull the plug on
the machine in order to restart it. I have turned all autoplay options
that I can find off. Vista tells me the drivers for the device are up to
date and I cannot find anything newer on the HP site.

Can anyone kindly offer me some advice on how to correct this? Thanks!

Cheers,
Stephen

 

[Adam Albright]

I'd appreciate any advice about a problem I am having with my DVD/CD
drive since I upgraded from XP to Vista Home Premium. MY desktop is an
HP Pavillion a1250n with a "HP DVD Writer 740b ATA Device" according to
the Device Manager.

Everything worked like a charm under XP but once I upgraded to Vista I
have had a strange problem with the drive. If I insert an audio CD I can
play it and/or copy it to Itunes. I can also go into Windows Explorer
and display the contents of the CD. If I insert a CD with photos or
program files, Windows Explorer will freeze up if I try to display the
contents. The lockup is so hard that I end up having to pull the plug on
the machine in order to restart it. I have turned all autoplay options
that I can find off. Vista tells me the drivers for the device are up to
date and I cannot find anything newer on the HP site.

Can anyone kindly offer me some advice on how to correct this? Thanks!

Cheers,
Stephen

I spent a couple minutes on the web and found this document:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00001838&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=&product=81685

If this is your drive, (scroll pretty far down the page) and it is an
internal IDE, fairly good change it may need a IDE controller upgrade.
That is based on the MB or in the case of some name box the model
number. You'll need to find that, then go to HP driver page and see if
they released a new IDE controller than runs under Vista. While there
see whatever if anything is offered in the way of driver updates for
your HP a1250n

I also found this page:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...=en&product=1127366&lang=en&docname=c00845986

 

[The Petries]

Hi Adam,

Thanks for your response. I had checked out those pages before but HP
only points to XP for that drive and/or system. Vista is reporting that
the driver (Microsoft) for the device is up to date.

What do you mean by an "IDE controller upgrade"? Software? Hardware?
Sorry, I'm just a user with enough knowledge to get myself into trouble
but not enough to know when to stick with XP

I would have expected that if drivers were a problem that the drive
would be 100% out of commission. It seems odd to me at least that it can
handle audio CD's but nothing else.

Thanks again for your help.

Cheers,
Stephen

 

[Adam Albright]

Hi Adam,

Thanks for your response. I had checked out those pages before but HP
only points to XP for that drive and/or system. Vista is reporting that
the driver (Microsoft) for the device is up to date.

What do you mean by an "IDE controller upgrade"? Software? Hardware?
Sorry, I'm just a user with enough knowledge to get myself into trouble
but not enough to know when to stick with XP

Just a guess since you got a ATA device, they only run off the IDE
controller, so just throwing the dice that upgrading the IDE
controller (yep its downloadable software, if there is one S/b
somehwere on the HP site) may fix the problem assuming HP has a Vista
upgrade for your IDE controller for your particular model. Seems to be
a growing list of vendors that aren't playing ball with Microsoft,
Adobe, HP, Espon to name three big ones that aren't in any apparent
hurry to rush out Vista drivers. Curious.

I would have expected that if drivers were a problem that the drive
would be 100% out of commission. It seems odd to me at least that it can
handle audio CD's but nothing else.

You would think so, but you never know. Computers and reltated stuff
can be strange beasts to tame. I had a external 1200 baud modem
belching heavy black smoke once. That was a little scary.

What you could try to is go to Device Manger find your DVD drive,
disable whatever driver it there now, then reboot and Windows should
"see new hardware" and reinstall the driver again. When you do this
you aren't deleteing the file, it just unassociates the driver with
the device, that's all. Sometimes just doing that fixes wierd problems
because in effect what you do by doing that is likely change the order
drivers and loaded at boot and perhaps their IRQ assignment. Like I
said, computers can do strange things. ;-)

 

[The Petries]

Thanks Adam for that suggestion. Unfortunately, it didn't solve the
problem. Sigh....

I have noticed one other peculiarity about its behaviour that might shed
some light on what is happening. If I insert a CD with a few folders and
a small number of files in the root I can now see the root directory but
if I start drilling down into directories with many files, it hangs up.
Perhaps the reason it can handle audio CD's is because they tend not to
have a great many files on them. Would the number of files be a clue to
what is wrong? Grasping at straws perhaps but it is a very annoying problem.

Cheers,
Stephen

 

[Adam Albright]

Thanks Adam for that suggestion. Unfortunately, it didn't solve the
problem. Sigh....

I have noticed one other peculiarity about its behaviour that might shed
some light on what is happening. If I insert a CD with a few folders and
a small number of files in the root I can now see the root directory but
if I start drilling down into directories with many files, it hangs up.
Perhaps the reason it can handle audio CD's is because they tend not to
have a great many files on them. Would the number of files be a clue to
what is wrong? Grasping at straws perhaps but it is a very annoying problem.

Sorry, so many things can go wrong hard to pin down. The usual cause
of a CD or DVD (especially home brew variety) hanging up is the disc
is damaged and probably wasn't successfully burned regardless if the
application you used to burn it says it was or not. A typical sign is
you start to see what's on the disc, then it takes way longer and
often you can't eject the disc or whatever application or Windows
itself hangs up. Aside from updating the controller you run it off of,
does the drive/burner itself have any new firmware update? That's
about all I can think of. If it is just one or two disc could be the
media itself is bad. That's common.

 

[john_barthel]

Stephen,

I have seen the same problem with my Dell XPS after upgrading from
Windows XP to Vista Ultimate. I am still trying to determine what is
going on and how to fix this problem. Any closer to solving the
problem?

 

[john_barthel]

Stephen,

I have seen the same problem with my Dell XPS after upgrading fromWindowsXP toVistaUltimate. I am still trying to determine what is
going on and how to fix this problem. Any closer to solving the
problem?

I have spent a grueling day pulling every Dell patch and flash for the
hardware on my computer. I ran flash upgrades on both my DVD and DVD/
CD RW drive. I updated the drivers for my NVidia video cards, NForce
raid drivers and the raid IDE/SIDE drivers. I pulled every other
little software update Dell had on their support site for my model of
desktop with Windows Vista. Nothing worked.

Then I remembered the headache I had after the Windows Vista upgrade
with the Roxio/Sonic DLA and Drag-to-Disc. Windows Vista kept poping
up errors about "Program Compatibility Assistant, This Driver is
blocked due to compatibility issues, Driver: Sonic Solutions DLA,
Publisher: Sonic Solutions. So I had to uninstall the Sonic Solutions
DLA. Of course Windows Vista blocked the uninstall and for some
reason did not warn me before installation of the Sonic Solutions DLA
incompatability problem and that you MUST uninstall Soninc Solutions
DLA before upgrading to Windows Vista. So I looked on the Internet
and found a Sonic forum where people where able to uninstall Sonic
Solutions DLA using some freeware called SafeMSI.exe which allows you
to boot into Safe Mode, run the SafeMSI which enables the Add/Remove
Programs and you can safely remove the Sonic Solutions DLA. So, I
thought my Sonic problems where over until I popped in my first audio
CD and my machine locked up completely. After about 10-15 minutes it
would unlock and the audio CD was ripped and the songs available in
Windows Media Player (I found this out during debugging because my
computer is set to eject the audio CD after ripping a CD. Then I
placed a DVD in the drive and it literally takes 5-10 minutes before
you can see the DVD or access the DVD. And on occasion if I inserted
a DVD that had data, video and audio it would cause my desktop to BSOD
(blue-screen-of-death) with a references_by_pointer error. I did the
usual, turn off all autoplay features but I still had all the problem
(audio CD lockups, DVD not accessible and BSOD). For those wondering
I had no problem with Windows XP, CD's or DVD's before. Now what do I
do?

Well, this morning I thought that if one Sonic application was causing
incompatability issues then could the rest be causing me problems?
So, I uninstalled all my Roxio and Sonic software in Safe Mode. After
the reboot I am not having ANY problems. I had purchased Roxio's
Suite version 8.0 less than a year ago, so it was their most recent
version before Vista was introduced. Not only are they not providing
patches for version 8.0 they told me to upgrade to version 9.0 for a
wopping $100 plus shipping (minus the $30 upgrade rebate). I don't
think so! I would have expected them to provide a better upgrade
offer for those that have recently purchased Roxio's Suite version 8
and Windows Vista. I have lost all faith in Roxio and Sonic after
this mess and the headaches it has cost me in time, money and piece of
mind.

So, if you have Roxio or Sonic products try uninstalling them. If it
does not work you can always reinstall them. I have used them and
have sworn by them since they provided the DLA and Drag-to-Disk back
in 2002. Now I have no faith they will support users and they just
want your money, not your loyalty.

John