Storage Solutions DVD Drive causing freezes and not reading data.

A

Ambar

Adept
My DVD drive ie LG GSA H10N is giving me some problems from 30 minutes ago ; I have not installed any new hardware/software, it just suddenly happened.

Like in the case of a Call Of Duty DVD, it shows the DVD name CoD:WaW next to my drive letter (G: ) but it does not load the autorun, nor can I autorun it using right click. When I try to run the game, it says 'Please insert the correct DVD and try again' ; but when I explore the dvd, I can see all the folders that are supposed to be there, except they are all empty :S

I can see all folders in all DVDs but they are all shown as empty

Sometimes the PC just hangs, and I get an error saying Windows Explorer has stopped responding (OS - Vista Ultimate). What do i do ? :huh:
 
That error usually comes when Explorer has hung waiting for a response from software or hardware - in your case it is the DVD drive. Either the DVD drive is failing to read (due to age) or the DVD media is bad. Once you have both those ruled out, you could try reseating the DVD drive power and data cables.
 
Or there are some IO error/conflicts. Check your windows error log. It may give you some clues.

I once encountered same problem when I changed my OS from XP 32-bit to Vista 32-bit. The drive that was perfectly working under XP just refused to read or write disks in Vista.

It was definitely an OS issue as I could boot from the disk alright, but I could not pinpoint it. I finally decided to sell the drive and got a new one which worked perfectly.
 
Ill try resetting the cables later, since it happens with all the dvds I insert.

@morgoth, where do I check windows error logs from?

@space ; whats DMA mode and how do I switch to it :S

Sorry for the noob questions :(
 
Ambar said:
Ill try resetting the cables later, since it happens with all the dvds I insert.

@morgoth, where do I check windows error logs from?
Click to expand...

Control panel > administrative tools > even viewer >system/application
 
Ambar said:
whats DMA mode and how do I switch to it :S
Click to expand...

DMA (Direct memory access) mode is a high performance mode for transferring data to and from devices, in particular, to CD and DVD burner devices.

The burner devices can function in either DMA or PIO modes. DMA mode allows the processor to transfer large pieces of data with very little software overhead - therefore requiring low CPU utilization. In this mode, high speed burning can be performed in background with other programs running.

PIO mode requires CPU processing for every few bytes sent to the device, so that CPU utilization becomes very high when trying to burn at high speeds.

Go to System Properties > HardWare > Device Manager.

Look for the 'IDE ATA/ATAPI' controllers icon and expand it by clicking on the (+) sign next to it. Select either the Primary or secondary IDE channel, which controls your burner drive, right click on it and select Properties.

Go To Advanced Settings and select and the device that you want to set to PIO / DMA mode.

U can toggle between the PIO/DMA mode and see if anything happens.

Also i did heard abt an instance wen the BIOS settings had the option "ENHANCE ATAPI PERFORMANCE" which was interfering with the normal working.
See if that is the case with u too.
Best of Luck. :)
 
Before reseating cables, I had checked the Error Logs, but there was no error for the last 2 months, the last error was on January 28th, under the name 'cdrom'. Could this have anything to do the ODD related issue you think morgoth?

Tried uninstall the drive from Device Manager and then let Vista reinstall it upon restart, then it showed me the proper folders+files but failed to play the media file.

Upon uninstalling+installing the drive again, the same thing happened ; ie, I could see folders and the files inside them, but as soon as I tried to play a video from the DVD, it went back to normal (folders but no files).
 
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