Vista - And my DVD Drive

[robw]

I realize beta's over.. That's Ok, I was at the Vista launch in New York
yesterday (in the same room as and just feet from Bill Gates and Steve
Ballmer) and received a free copy of Vista Ultimate (and some other neat
stuff)....

Now I am asking for support I didn't get during the beta period because I
was always "one release behind"...

My DVD RW (IOMagic brand, I believe) drive works fine in XP, In fact I used
it to do the first part of the Vista install which took maybe 10-20 minutes.
The second part (post-reboot) has taken well over 4 hours now and it's still
going. I had this problem in RTM 64-bit Vista business, and am now having
it in 32-bit (same PC, different drive) Vista Ultimate (boxed). What
appears to be happening is that every time the DVD is accessed, for a good
few minutes or more: (1) The DVD drive just flashes green, and (2) the
computer is non-responsive (well, the mouse is moving so I can't really say
that). The DVD Doesn't appear to actually be spinning when it's flashing
(or it's remrakably quiet anyway) though eventually every 20 minutes or so
it will spin up for maybe 10-20 seconds ...

I've been sitting on "Installing features and updates..." for at least 2
hours.. I thought this was the step that always flew by..

Help!

-Rob

p.s. If it was just the install that did this I wouldn't mind, but if this
is going anything like Vista 64-bit RTM business edition I can fully expect
the same behavior anytime I want to read from or write to a CD/DVD... Again,
in XP this drive is fine so I "don't get it".

 

[smartie]

open device-manager and look for any exclamation marks or errors there.

The thing i would guess on it's adriver thing related to the IDE or SATA /
PATA-channel, so try looking for such entries - you can right-click step by
step all your devices and tell vista to "update driver", then go to "search
automatic" - this will let it search WindowsUpdate for drivers.

Even if no errors are appearing try the system devices, the DVD/CDRW devices
and said IDE or ATA stuff to look for newer drivers online.

In a lot cases this brings indeed new drivers in ( vista will show you
"installing the driver software" ) a system. Even on already up and running
systems this does a change !

And for good, because you get always signed and verified drivers, located
just for your personal system and automatically installed, no questions, no
pathnames to type in..


Give it a try, it wont do any harm. I promise

Other thing to consider :

If you have access to it, you could also try the x86 version of Vista.
x64 HAS indeed LOTS problems that x86 doesn't have.

of course MS wont tell you that, but every x64 user can tell by running into
strange things sometimes, be it a OS or a software thing. That technique is
for sure not "ready".

I stick with 32bit software as long as things are that way.

smartie

 

[robw]

Great, but that doesn't help with the install (little can be done about
that, I imagine)..

A good idea came from a family member.. I just restarted the install with an
External (USB) DVD-RW Drive I had laying around.. Hope that goes better.

-Rob