Please help me diagnose

[ant80]

Setup: I have an athlon64 with MSI K8N Neo4 mobo.
Primary: 2 hard drives
Secondary: CDRW master, DVDRW Slave

Problem: This was working perfectly until recently. But now, every time I try to burn a CD on the CDRW, it doesn't detect the CD being loaded and asks me for a new cd. The DVDRW is also problematic, with ALL DVDs showing errors during the verification process. The DVD RW does not recognize any CDs, but does recognize previously burned DVDs.

What I Did:
I changed the optical drives to the primary and the hard drives to the secondary IDE. That didn't work.
Then I changed the IDE cable for the optical drive. That didn't work either.

At present, I am at a loss. I suspect it is my optical drives that are causing problems, but the fact that they were both working well previously and started acting weird simultaniously would seem to suggest something else.

I use firefox, and don't listen to music on my computer. In fact, I've never loaded a music-cd on my computer. I say this because I know some music CDs contain software that causes errors during CD burning.

What do you guys think is the problem? Is there anything I can do short of taking the CD into another computer? Any input you can give is appreciated. Thanks.
- ant

 

[bendixG15]

I can't help you out, but could you elaborate on...........

In fact, I've never loaded a music-cd on my computer. I say this because I know some music CDs contain software that causes errors during CD burning.

 

[phisrow]

If multiple drives are flaking out at once, I'd be quite suspicous of your software. I don't know exactly why that would happen; but it seems to fit the facts.

Try booting the machine from a liveCD, and see if the drives work then. If so, something has definitely hosed your drivers, if they still don't work, I'd blame either really rotten luck, or possibly power problems.

 

[ant80]

Originally posted by: bendixG15
I can't help you out, but could you elaborate on...........

In fact, I've never loaded a music-cd on my computer. I say this because I know some music CDs contain software that causes errors during CD burning.

Well, I read an article on /. about some companies including spyware that incorporated errors into the burn-process, which reduced the burn-speed on the CDs or DVDs eventually. Compensation for that is listed here.

Also, thanks for the insight phisrow. I will look into it today.

 

[bendixG15]

Got it.......