DVD/CDs Not recognized in DVD ROM

[Sun-Tzu]

Hello to you all,

I am new to the forums and would like to say that I have always come here to read words of wisdom when troubleshooting. I have more or less always been able to fix my own problems by getting hints and tips from here.

Recently however, I've come across a problem that has most baffled.

I have a Vista system built on an assus AILife board. I will post more info if it is needed. The board has two EIDE controllers, 2 SATA RAID controllers with a total of 6 internal SATA ports and on eSATA, and one Floppy controller.

Recently I have been having problems with my optical drives on the EIDE controller 0. I used to have a DVD-ROM (cs) and a DVD-RW (cs) on this controller and all was well. Then, one fatefull night a storm blew through and zap went the computer. Some troubleshooting later and it was thought that the CPU went and when it was replaced all was well... or so I thought.

I was getting intermittent problems where the drives on EIDE 0 would dissapear. Then came the day when the drives would show up fine and be identified correctly, but would not read the disk inserted. Whenever a disk was inserted, be it CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, Movie... explorer would freeze and the disk would not be read. Nothing showed in the drive.

So I forced their status to Master and Slave... no go. Then I seperated both drives. One on EIDE 0 and one on EIDE 1. Hazah! I could see and use the drive on EIDE 1. EIDE 0's drive was still not working. I then switched the drive out with a know working model with the same results.

So now I have both drives on EIDE 1 and they both work. Controllers going bad is rare in my experience, but is it possible and does it sound as if this is the case? I now have 2 working optical drives, but I don't like hanging mysteries so I am asking for help in this regard.

Thanks

[david eaton]

one fatefull night a storm blew through and zap went the computer.
That is your problem right there. If the storm blew your CPU, then it is almost certain the other parts were at least overstressed, and liable to failure somewhere down the road. I would not trust the motherboard, or even the hard drive.

[Sun-Tzu]

Well, the storm was over a year ago and the computer has been running as stable as XP Pro would allow.

The 2 drives are in a mirror array and I back it up regularly so not too worried there.

Both optical drives are on EIDE Channel 1 and they work just fine. So it would seem to suggest that indeed, there is a problem with EIDE controller 0.

Testing the drives to make sure that they are performing according to parameters and so far so good.

I have just never seen a controller go south before.

[Heartborne]

Good work troubleshooting that on your own. It doesn't look like there's anything you can do at this point except for put both drives on EIDE 1.

It's odd, my front panel speakers have NEVER worked. I'm not sure if it's because the case wiring is wrong or because it just doesn't work off the mobo... but either way, it's lame.