DVD Drive problems

Adam Sanchez · 03-20-2007, 09:22 PM

Hey all.

I've been having problems with my DVD Drives as of late. It seems to be affecting both of them. I have a Plextor DVD Burner, I believe it's the PX-760A and my other drive is just a DVD Player (Sony.)

Whenever I watch a DVD, with either player it will just stall and freeze for no reason. Tonight I was trying to backup a disc and I kept hearing the drive "spin down" and then I would get CRC Errors. The disc I am trying to backup is brand new, and my Plextor drive is also fairly new.

What can I do to keep the drive accesing the disc?

I recently wiped my system and everything is cleanly installed so I can't imagine why I am running into problems like this.

Adam Sanchez · 03-21-2007, 04:29 PM

Still trying to resolve this. I don't know whats causing the issue. Disc, Drive, software, or PC itself somehow.

Will_B · 03-21-2007, 09:46 PM

I can't help you myself (because I do not know enough), but do a search for "DMA mode" on google with the intention of making sure that your computer has not lost the DMA settings that are best suited to DVD reading/writing.

Parker Clack · 03-22-2007, 08:02 AM

It could be from the cable from your DVD drives to your motherboard is going bad and needs switched out with a new one to the motherboard itself going bad.

I would unplug that drives from your motherboard and then plug them back in and see if your system tells you that it has found new hardware and is installing the drives and see if that fixes the problem.

Adam Sanchez · 03-22-2007, 01:03 PM

Thanks for the idea Parker.

I thought it could be the mother board, or the cables. But what makes me think it's not the cables is that both drives are messing up and both are on thier own IDE Channel. I don't have any Slave Drives in my PC everything has it's own dedicated cable.

Still of course I could switch them and try. I've had drive problems with this PC before, but the drives have changed over the years and problems still creep up. Makes me think its the motherboard. I know it was never reviewed as the best in the world, and nowadays I wonder what really GOOD replacement I could get.

My MoBo is a Abit, back to the 865PE chipset days. I wasn't ready then to goto the modern boards with PCI-e and all that and am frankly still not ready to. I could afford $100 to $200 for a new Mobo, but I can't afford to have to get new RAM, compatible Processor, PCI-E Video card, and so on.

This is off topic of my original post, but don't suppose anyone could recommend a really GOOD 865PE type Motherboard I could (Hopefully) Find pretty easily? I'd want to get the best I can, even though I'm sure they are hard to come by.

**HTF Ads**

John Wilson · 03-25-2007, 08:37 PM

I would agree with Will B that you should confirm what DMA mode both of your drives are in. To check this do the following:

1.Right click MY Computer and select Properties.
2. Click on Hardware, then Device Manager.
3. Click on the "+" next to the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
4. Right click in the channel that your drive is on and select Properties.
5. Click on the Advanced Settings tab and look to see what DMA mode is currently being used for both Device 0 (master) and Device 1 (slave)

If any of the DMA modes are listed as PIO, this slower mode MAY be contributing to your problem. This is just a educated guess to aid in your troubleshooting.

Good Luck.

Christian Behrens · 03-28-2007, 05:44 PM

Install any PC games that have copy protection which could have messed with your drives? Some are known to install a layer between drives and the OS that can adversely affect their normal functioning, just google "Starforce".

-Christian

Rommel_L · 03-28-2007, 08:09 PM

Adam,

Quote:

...Tonight I was trying to backup a disc and I kept hearing the drive "spin down" and then I would get CRC Errors. The disc I am trying to backup is brand new, and my Plextor drive is also fairly new...

The software that you're using to 'backup' the brand new dvd is not up-to-date, which causes the CRC errors during the backup process. Look for the most current version of dvdfab decrypter or ripit4me (google them) and see if they help you backup your dvd...

Adam Sanchez · 03-29-2007, 01:39 PM

How could not having the current version cause CRC errors? I admit I dont get it.

Did DVD Decrypter become DVDFab Decrypter? I was actually using DVD Shrink. My Decrypter hasnt worked in months. I always get errors right when I load the app. I just stopped using it.

All my DMA settings were fine by the way. Sorry for not getting back to the thread sooner.

My computer was recently formatted and has very little apps on it. I really have no games installed yet except Warcraft. All my drives are partitioned for different virtual drives for different kinds of apps. One for games, one for programs, one for storage, etc. So all this is happening on a fairly fresh system.

Rommel_L · 03-29-2007, 08:46 PM

Adam,

DVD Shrink is an old program that is not updated anymore, and therefore cannot be used alone just to 'backup' the latest DVDs, but still has its use in shrinking a movie to fit a standard blank DVD.

DVDFab Decrypter and DVD Decrypter are two different programs. May I suggest to use RipIt4Me instead. It will still need the ripping and burning ability of DVD Decrypter and the shrinking ability of DVDShrink.

PM me for details that cannot be posted here...

R