CD-RW woes!!! Plextor Plexwriter

[azonicbruce]

Warning! This post is going to be a long one but since the board says to provide "sufficient information" I will try to do so.

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/mad.gif Just bought a brand spankin' new Plextor Plexwriter 12/10/32x; IDE-ATAPI interface. Removed the old CD-ROM from the Device manager, then Shut down. The CD-ROM was hooked up to the Secondary IDE slot and set on Master. I hooked up the new Plextor THE EXACT SAME WAY (Secodary IDE;Master). Booted up. Windows had no problem installing driver database and recognizing the drive. Checked the boxes for DMA and Sync Data Transfer in Device Manager, AS STATED IN THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR INSTALLATION of the PlexWriter. Restarted.

Installed Adaptec Easy CD Creator. Then, after restarting, the CD drive started to freeze on me. After multiple errors (see below for a list of errors that came up) and restarts I was finally able to install Direct CD, and Plextor Manager 2000. Then kept haveing problems with the drive acting as a normal CD-ROM; kept getting errors. I UNISTALLED, REMOVED, and REDID everything again.

Long story short, I got it working as a normal CD-ROM with no errors. Then I tried to get it to Record using Easy CD Creator. Nothing but problems, but was able to get it to work after disabling an option (the option is to, as soon as an audio CD is inserted, recognize them as .WAV filesinstead of .cda. So anyways I was able to successfully burn an audio CD (with DMA on, Syn Data Transfer off)

Here's what I'm STILL having problems with.

I took the blank CD-RW disc that CAME WITH the drive, started up Direct CD,and Formatted the disc, using the option of being able to read it in a standard CD-ROM drive. Then went into Explorer, dragged and dropped a couple of files for storage. Exited programs. Then I tried to access those saved files directly from the disc. Computer froze up completely. Restarted, inserted the disc. NOW the computer is freezing up just trying to recognize the disc. When it wasn't freezing up, the computer would keep saying Drive E: not ready/accessible, EVEN THOUGH the disc was in the drive. (Again, see below a list of common errors that came up)

I tried to reformat the disc, but since it starts to freeze up the minute you put it into the drive, I can't even open up Direct CD far enough to reformat.

I then took this disc to the computer labs and SAME THING! The brand new Dell's and HP Vectra started to freeze up when I clicked on the drive to see what data was on it (they didn't freeze up as bad as my computer). Both of these computer's had CD-RW drives and Adaptec Software (the Dell ran Windows 2000 and the HP ran NT 4.0) I was eventually able to run Direct CD on those computers, but when it started the Reformat process, it either froze up, shut downt the application, or said "Error: The Medium is not ready..."

So obviously there is something wrong with the disc, but something tells me there's STILL something wrong with MY PLEXWRITER. I don't know if it's the drive itself or Windows or the motherboard or WHAT! It's getting very frustrating.

Here is a list of things I've tried on my OWN computer:
*Fiddled with BIOS, trying to, as suggested by Plextor, "set the MB to PIO Mode 4 or DMA Mode 2", but I don't see anything specifically for that in Bios.
*Turning on or off the DMA and Syn Data transfer boxes in Device Manager
*Checking the IDE cable for proper istallation
*Reinstalling the software
*Removing/adding the Plextor drive from Device Manager
*ETC.

Here is a list of various errors that I've gotten:

*Msgsrv32 [Not Responding]
*PLEXTOR caused an invalid page fault in
module <unknown> at 0000:00000000.
Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=0000 EIP=00000000 EFLGS=00000000
EBX=00000000 SS=0000 ESP=00000000 EBP=00000000
ECX=00000000 DS=0000 ESI=00000000 FS=0000
EDX=00000000 ES=0000 EDI=00000000 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
Stack dump:

*Application Error
Exception EAccessViolation in module PLEXTOR.EXE at FFFFF009.
Access violation at address 00000009. Write of address 70D 3D 7C3

*Runtime error 216 at 00041594
*Fatal exception 0Dat 10FF:014F61397
*HPZSTATX caused an invalid page fault in
module HPZSTATX.EXE at 0167:00407bdf.
Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=0167 EIP=00407bdf EFLGS=00010246
EBX=00c91c90 SS=016f ESP=0161ff40 EBP=00c90460
ECX=ffffffff DS=016f ESI=00c90e20 FS=3727
EDX=00000001 ES=016f EDI=00000001 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
f2 ae 8b 45 0c f7 d1 49 8b d9 8b c8 3b c3 72 02
Stack dump:
00c906f0 00c90e20 0161ff74 00c91c90 0040d430 00c90960 0040403e 00c90900 00c90800 00c91ef0 00c91c90 00c906f0 00c90e00 0161ff98 00406d52 00c90210


System Configuration:
Windows 98 SE (installed the latest windows update a couple months ago)
Asus P2 B-F mother board
PIII 450mhz processor; 256mb Kingston SDRAM
Plextor Plexwriter 12/10/32A
Adaptec EZ CD Creator 4.02
Adaptec Direct CD 3.01

PLEASE help me get rid of my computer Woes! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/frown.gif

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You catch more flies with honey, than with a rifle!

[Paleo Pete]

No problem with a long post, plenty info is a good thing...

The only thing I can think of is...did you boot into Safe Mode to remove the old CD ROM from Device Manager? If not, do so, and remove all CD ROM devices shown. It might also be a good idea to uninstall the CD writer software and reinstall it.

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[kayofcircles]

I had earlier versions of Adaptec and EZCD than you have, but similar problems. Did you call tech support? HP (mine was an HP burner) had me rename some vxd files in the iosubsys folder, uncheck the DMA boxes everywhere, and disable the Auto Insert notification. After that, part of it worked.

Found a couple pages at Roxio you might like to check. List of version 4 and bug fixes (http://www.roxio.com/en/support/ecdc/ecdc4vhist.html) and updates page (http://www.roxio.com/en/support/ecdc/ecdcupdates.jhtml) that has one update for your version. I am assuming there may be an update elsewhere in their site for the Adaptec as well.

I only needed to save big pictures files on CD, so I never got the RW problem fixed. Put several RWs in and formatted and locked the puter every time...so just gave up on RW disks and stuck with CDR disks. But, again, I would pester Plextor support until they get the whole thing fixed. You might actually want to be able to use an RW.

[gossamer]

i had a similar problem with my hp cd-rw and windows 2000. i use nero and it has a program called in-cd that allows you to write to the cd-rw by dragging and dropping. my machine would freeze when i put the disc in the drive to read it. once i removed the in-cd software everything worked fine. i'm not too familiar with adaptec's latest software but if direct cd is similar to nero's in-cd, then it might be worth a try to remove it and see what happens.

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The internet? Is that thing still around?

[azonicbruce]

Paleo, I did remove the old CD rom in the Device Manager, BUT NOT IN SAFE MODE. The only drive that appears in device manager is the Plextor drive. SHOULD I STILL GO into safe mode to see if the old drive appears? Also, if I unistall all the programs and reinstall them, SHOULD I DO ALL THIS IN SAFE MODE? IS THERE A CERTAIN ORDER that I should do all this stuff in?

Kayo, yeah I'm just about to call up Plextor. I also tried to find the lastest updates for my BIOS, Windows, Plextor drive, and Adaptec software. The only problem I have is that currently I don't have an Internet connection (at home, I have to use the school's computers). The Adaptec update files are 1.7 and 3.5 MB and I don't have a zip drive, and I can't figure out how to compress them enough to fit on a floppy. I guess I can try and burn the files HERE on a CD-R and read them on my home computer (hopefully that will work)



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You catch more flies with honey, than with a rifle!

[mjc]

There are file splitting utilities that will create a spanned set of floppies...here (http://www.webattack.com/freeware/downloader/fwfilesplit.shtml) are several.

BIOS update is...here (http://www.asus.com.tw/products/Motherboard/bios_slot1.html#p2b-f).

And, yes, go into Safe Mode and see if it is still there...

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

Gun Control...hitting what you aim at!

[azonicbruce]

Hey there. Things are looking brighter. I went into safe mode and YES, the old cd-rom was still there in device manager, as well as a couple other devices I had but removed a long time ago. I removed those too.

WHY IS THIS SO? WHY DON'T THEY GET REMOVED WHEN NOT IN SAFE MODE?

I updated both CD Creator and Direct CD to the newest versions (4.05 and 3.05, respectively)

Anyways, using a CD-R as a floppy disc is not problem, and yesterday I tried to use a CD-RW (had to buy an new disc) and SO FAR SO GOOD! As long as I leave the box checked saying I want to keep accessing data from a drive letter, than it seems to work O.K. I haven't yet tried the check box saying to make the disc readable from a standard CD-ROM, but I don't know when I'd need to (since most of the compturs I use have a CD-RW drive)

I'll keep you all posted if I run into more problems. Thanks for all the help. You guys ROCK!!!!

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You catch more flies with honey, than with a rifle!

[kayofcircles]

I am not sure about this...cuz newer software might make it possible..but don't think that you're supposed to be able to make an RW readable in all CDROMs. BUT..with my new Sony burner, the packet writer (the drag and drop software) only works on RW's..not the CDRs. It was with no small amount of worry that I popped the first RW I had made with my new Sony into my other CDROM and tried to "read" it..and got happy! Turns out that both our regular CDROMs read the RWs. I think most of the newer CDRom's do read them, and I think there's free software out there for the older ones.

[iisbob]

Good show Kay! I was just going to point out that Most CD players in the last 3 years will read CD-RW CD's as standard CD's.

Also, just curious azonicbruce, but why didn't you just leave in your CD player and hook up the CD-burner as secondary slave? I still use my CD player because even the Newest CD-burner can't read as fast, if you'd installed in this manner you would have avoided at least %99.9 of your problems. Just my Humble opinion. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

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iisbob
"Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run."

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." --Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

[danleff]

Hi;

Sounds like your on the right track. I also had a cd burner from HP with "bundled" software (meaning that HP used a combo software package including cd creator & cd direct). Support for the bundles software must come from the cd manufact. The Roxio site was helful to me also. Had to reinstall the software several times to get it to work. Also, the "gost" drivers left over are a problem. A little persistence pays off!

Nice going everybody. Especially you azonicbruce!

Thanks for the file splitter links mjc, been wondering about this!

[This message has been edited by danleff (edited 08-24-2001).]

[azonicbruce]

Well, bob, the reason I didn't hook up my CD-ROM up as a secondary is that my CD-ROM died. It just started freaking out and so I needed to either get a new CD-ROM or upgrade to the CD-RW. Didn't have money for both. If I do alot more ripping/burning I might get a CD-ROM but for now I think what I got now will get me by. Thanks for the advice, though.


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You catch more flies with honey, than with a rifle!