Recently since I installed a third hard drive, an IDE drive (The other 2 are SATAs), I am unable to use my CD and DVD Drives. They are on an IDE Channel. I believe I installed the IDE HD to the end of the cable so there is no other drive on that cable. BTW all drives show up in Administrative Tools, Disk Management. TIA for your fine assistance and hopeful solution gentlemen and ladies.

srloren

is the drive set on cable select?
some drive cables may not have that option you may need to set the drive to master on the jumpers
double check the bios for the correct settings
it sounds like the ide channel or channels are not set properly

Which drive are you referring to being set on Cable Select? I have not looked but I will take the cover off if I need to. I believe I set the last IDE hard drive to Cable Select now that you mention it. Could that effect the other Channel that has the CD and DVD Drives? Thanks for your help.

srloren

Set it to master and see what happens...

Keep the old stuff running

I set the Maxtor 120 IDE drive to master but no change yet. Still can not access the drive. It shows up on boot up, in the bios and on Administrative Tools, Disk Management.
Thanks for the suggestion. What next?

srloren

Just thought of something. The IDE is on the Primary Master Channel. There is nothing on the Secondary Slave Channel. The Secondary Master has the Lite-On CD and the Secondary Slave is the Pioneer DVD. The SATAs are listed as 3rd Channel and 4th Channel Masters. Does this configuration look correct?

srloren

You aren't using the right terminology, srloren.

The two channels are Primary and Secondary.
The drives on each channel will either be Master or Slave.
For example the Primary channel will have a Master drive and a Slave drive.

Thanks, You are correct. I will restate it:
The IDE is on the Primary Master Channel. There is nothing on the Primary Slave Channel. The Secondary Master has the Lite-On CD and the Secondary Slave is the Pioneer DVD. The SATAs are listed as 3rd Channel and 4th Channel Masters. Does this configuration look correct?

I think I have it right now.
Also I looked at the CD and DVD Drives and I had them set to CS. I changed them to CD is Master and the DVD is the Slave. Hope someone has a clue as to what is happening. I will have to read in the Manual for the P5P800 to see if I am bumping against a limit for the Motherboard. Thanks much.

srloren

Try disconnecting each optical drive and check to see if the other one works ok. A defective drive on a channel 'can' kill the other one.

Make sure that they are both getting power.

"The IDE is on the Primary Master Channel."

There is no such thing as a "Primary Master Channel". There is a 'Primary channel' with a drive on it that is plugged as Master.

Aegis, you are correct.
I'll try again. My MB has 4 channels. 2 Ide and 2 SATA. I have recently connected a IDE Harddrive to Channel 0 configured as a Master. There are no other drives on this Channel. On Channel 1 the Master is configured to the CD Drive. The Slave is configured to the DVD Drive.

I will unplug the cable and the power on the CD and DVD to make sure that I don't have a misconnection. Then I will disconnect the power and cable from the CD to test it then do the same to the DVD to see if either is defective. I Will report back my findings. Thanks Gents

srloren

Also check that you are using an 80 pin cable on your IDE drive. They are easily identified as they generally use 3 different colour connectors, say blue at one end, grey at the other and black in the middle.
When the wrong cables are used (40)pin they can give trouble.

Thanks, yes I have the 80 pin cable on the ide channels. I am beginning to think there is something wrong with the MB because I have removed the IDE Hard drive and still cannot get either of the drives to copy files. Still getting the error: Windows has encountered a problem when trying to copy this file. What do you want Windows to do? Try Again, Skip or Cancel

srloren

Many unexplained points here. First off, did these optical drives function prior to installing the IDE drive? If so, did you reconfigure the cables or jumpers?

How are you attempting to copy the files to the optical drives? What type of media are you trying to copy to? How are the optical drive showing in Device Manager?

Thanks OtheHill for your reply...
First off, did these optical drives function prior to installing the IDE drive?
Yes, very well.
If so, did you reconfigure the cables or jumpers?
Only had to change the Bios to boot up to the SATA as before instead of the newly added IDE. I can't remember for sure but I think I set the jumpers on the CD and DVD to Cable Select....just not sure if I did it when I added the IDE.
How are you attempting to copy the files to the optical drives?
Using Windows Explorer. Select a file that I created and Copy then Paste to the CD or DVD. I have tried both. I have also used the Left click dialog box and selected the file and then selected Send to the CD Drive.
What type of media are you trying to copy to?
CD-R and DVD-R. Both give the same error: "Windows has encountered a problem when trying to copy this file. What do you want Windows to do? Try Again, Skip or Cancel"
How are the optical drive showing in Device Manager?
They show up OK. Properties show the device is enabled and should be working properly.

Thanks for looking into this OtheHill.

srloren

OK, why would you change the jumpers on working optical drives? Did you recable them or are they connected exactly as they used to be?

WinXP will not natively write to DVD media.

Go to device Manager> Expand IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers> right click the Primary channel and select properties> advanced settings. What is the current transfer mode? Repeat for the Secondary channel.

"Using Windows Explorer. Select a file that I created and Copy then Paste to the CD or DVD. I have tried both. I have also used the Left click dialog box and selected the file and then selected Send to the CD Drive."

Windows XP does not support writing to DVDs and will give you the error message you are receiving if you try. This does not explain why it will not write to CDs though.

Do you have any software such as InCD or Drag To Disc installed?

OK, why would you change the jumpers on working optical drives?
I am not sure that I did change the jumpers at that time. I know that I added the Lite-ON CD at that time and that is why I would chage the jumpers.
Did you recable them or are they connected exactly as they used to be?
I did not recabel them when I installed the ide harddrive.
WinXP will not natively write to DVD media.

Go to device Manager> Expand IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers> right click the Primary channel and select properties> advanced settings. What is the current transfer mode? Repeat for the Secondary channel.
I have 2 Primary channels and 2 Secondary Channels configured as follows:
Primary IDe Channel DMA if available
Primary IDe Channel Ultra DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode Ultra DMA 5
Primary IDe Channel Current Transer Mode Ultra DMA4
Primary IDe Channel Current Transer Mode Ultra DMA5

srloren

GerryC
Do you have any software such as InCD or Drag To Disc installed? No

srloren

To clarify the history of this system, I originally had 2 SATA HDs and the Pioneer DVD installed on my computer. I then added the Lite-On CD and then the last addition was the ide hard Drive. That may clear up some of the confusion. Thanks guys for your help.

srloren

So the ONLY change made at the time the optical drives stopped burning was the addition of the IDE harddrive?

Are the optical drives identified by model name/ number at startup?

What are the specs or model of your PSU?

Have you added or removed any burning software to this computer?

I take it both optical drives do read all types of disks OK?

So the ONLY change made at the time the optical drives stopped burning was the addition of the IDE harddrive? Yes

Are the optical drives identified by model name/ number at startup? Yes

What are the specs or model of your PSU?
Antec Neo 480 Watt

Have you added or removed any burning software to this computer? Now that you mention it I did remove when I was removing a lot of Services that I thought I did not need. It was Nero that came with the CD Rom....Duh?
I take it both optical drives do read all types of disks OK? Yes they do.

I think you asked the critical question regarding the software....I will reinstall it to see if Windows will now copy for me....Thanks much.

srloren

I thought installing Nero would solve this frustrating problem...it did not.

As it stands now both drives show up in Device Manager as working. They also show up in Disk Manager and when I put a disk into each drive, Disk Managers shows the contents of the drive. Windows is recognizing these ATAPI Devices. So far so good.
When I attempt to copy a file from Windows Explorer, I copy and select Send to: Neither of the drives are available on the list to copy or send to. At least before I installed Nero, I had an error but now I do not have a choice to choose either CD or DVD drive.
Anyone have a clue? Thanks again for your help.

srloren

You can try a couple of things. First of all did you install the same copy of Nero as you had installed before? Nero versions that come bundled with drives many times will only work with that drive. You can try to update the drive compatibility list from Nero's site. If Nero can't recognise the drive it can access the drive. More likely issue is one of ASPI layer drivers. These are drivers that are needed for optical drives, among other things. When you install burning programs like Nero it may replace the native ASPI layer drivers with it's own version. All works well until you remove Nero. Now the Nero ASPI layer drivers are removed and the original drivers are not present either. There are a couple of methods that may correct this without a restore. The first involves reinstalling common ASPI layer drivers versions. The second involves deleting upper and /or lower filters.

Look at the link below for additional info on ASPI.

http://aspi.radified.com/

Thanks OtheHill, I installed the aspi files but still experience the problem after rebooting. When I select a file to copy to the CD, it says there is no disk in the CD, and suggests that I put one in. The disk is already in the drive. This is really a bummer. I can read and write from the CD player. I copied a file from the Window CD and it works fine. It is just copying from Windows explorer that I experience the problem. Strange as hell. Thanks for your continued support...I realize you must be running out of ideas, but I appreciate your help.

srloren

Check out the links below. Take care with the filters. The last link appears to explain how to extract the filters from the WinXP CD. If those links don’t help then Google upper and lower filters for many more hits.

http://search.microsoft.com/results...

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6122_10...

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/i...

It sounds like your Windows installation is no longer recognizing your burner drives as burner drives. If Windows "thinks" your burner drives are CDrom or DVDrom drives you cannot copy files to burnable disks in them.

In Device Manager - DVD\CDrom Drives - are you getting the proper model of each drive listed there, or does it say something else, such as CDrom and DVDrom?

If those say something else, or in any case, try this.......
Uninstall the labelled drives, and reboot.
Windows should then find the proper model numbers and you should see they are correct under Device Manager - DVD\CDrom Drives .
.....

"I have 2 Primary channels and 2 Secondary Channels configured as follows:
Primary IDe Channel DMA if available
Primary IDe Channel Ultra DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode Ultra DMA 5
Primary IDe Channel Current Transer Mode Ultra DMA4
Primary IDe Channel Current Transer Mode Ultra DMA5 "

You are misquoting what you are seeing.

I looked at your mboard model's manual.
I am assuming it is a plain P5P800, with no additional model number labelling.

Your mboard has two IDE headers, Primary and Secondary, each of which can have a master and a slave drive connected to them, and two Sata headers, each of which can only designate a drive as master.

The bios Setup lists these as:
Primary IDE Master
Primary IDE Slave
Secondary IDE Master
Secondary IDE slave
Third IDE Master (a SATA drive)
Fourth IDE Master (a SATA drive)

Windows usually defaults to listing the IDE drive controller channels first in Device Manager.

If Windows is setting your drives to their max modes, no optical drive can run faster than Ultra DMA mode 4 (UDMA66, 66mb/sec) - in fact I know of no CD burner drive (that only burns CDs) than can run faster than Ultra DMA mode 2 (UDMA33, 33mb/sec).
Ultra DMA mode 5 is UDMA100 (100 mb/sec).
Recent IDE hard drives are either UDMA100, or UDMA133 (Ultra DMA mode 6 in Windows)

(You did not mention a drive running in Ultra DMA mode 2, or Multiword mode 2, and there should only be one in Ultra DMA mode 5).

You should see something similar to this, if your information about where your drives are connected is correct:

(First IDE listed) Primary IDE - Channel 0 (master)
DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode: Ultra DMA 5
(the Maxtor hard drive)

no drive on Primary IDE - Channel 1, (slave)

(First and only listed) Secondary IDE - Channel 0 (master)

DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode: Ultra DMA 4 (If the DVD drive), or Ultra DMA 2 (If the CD drive)

Secondary IDE - Channel 1 (slave)

DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode: Ultra DMA 2 (If the CD drive), or Ultra DMA 4 (If the DVD drive)

Third IDE, whatever it's label - only has channel 0 (master)
DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode: Ultra DMA 6

Fourth IDE, whatever it's label - only has channel 0 (master)
DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode: Ultra DMA 6

(The default in your bios Setup is to run your SATA drive controller(s) (in the ICH5 chip of your chipset) in IDE compatible mode. In that made, all SATA drives run in UDMA133 mode, Ultra DMA 6 mode in Windows.)

.....

If either or both of your optical drives are not detected at all as running in a mode, check your data cable (see below) and the jumper settings of the drives. Both drives should use either master and slave jumpering, or both should use cable select jumpering - mixing those types will not allow both drives to be detected under some circumstances.

If either or both of your optical drives are in PIO mode, try selecting DMA if Available, saving settings, then looking at their settings again.
If they are still in PIO mode, Windows has probably placed lines in your registry limiting them to PIO mode because it has detected the drive(s) is(are) producing too many data errors.

The common causes of this are:
- there is a problem with the data cable or it's connection, or there was previously a problem and Windows hasn't yet set the same drive model(s) to their proper setting(s).

It is common to un-intentionally damage IDE data cables, especially while removing them - the 80 wire ones are more fragile. What usually happens is the cable is ripped at either edge and the wires there are either damaged or severed, often right at a connector or under it's cable clamp there, where it's hard to see - if a wire is severed but it's ends are touching, the connection is intermittant.
Another common thing is for the data cable to be separated from the connector contacts a bit after you have removed a cable - there should be no gap between the data cable and the connector - if there is press the cable against the connector to eliminate the gap.

If in doubt, replace the data cable.

- much less likely, one or both drives are defective. This is most often because the drive motor can no longer spin reliably at it's max speeds, or at 1X speed, or it doesn't spin at all, or, a lot less likely, one of the lasers or it's circuit(s) have failed, or it is otherwise damaged.
Hence some others suggested trying the drives one at a time; they would need to be jumpered appropriately if necessary.
Or you could try them connected to another computer
.....

If you cure the problem that caused the data errors, if there was previously a problem and Windows made the lines in the registry that force the drive into PIO mode, it will often NOT remove those lines and set the same drive model(s) to their proper setting(s).
You must remove those lines from the registry.
If you're leery about editing the registry create a Restore point in System Restore at this point
Start - Run - type: regedit, click ok.
Navigate to the first entry at the top of the left pane and make sure the first entry at the top of the left pane is highlighted - My Computer - so that regedit will search starting from the beginning of the registry -If it isn't highlighted click on it to highlight it.
Search the registry for: IdDataChecksum
If a drive has been forced into PIO mode there will be lines found on the right pane MasterIdDataChecksum or SlaveIdDataChecksum or both, and if any are found there will be at least two of each one.
If no instances of IdDataChecksum are found, you do not have this problem.

If IdDataChecksum is found,
Delete the first one found by RIGHT clicking on it's highlighted entry and selecting Delete.
Press F3 to find further instances, and Delete them.
Continue pressing F3 and deleting the entries until no more are found.

If you start the search over again, navigate to the first entry at the top of the left pane and click on it so that it is highlighted - My Computer - so that regedit will search starting from the beginning of the registry.
.......

If both your optical drives are detected as running in a mode but both are in PIO mode, and if no IdDataChecksum lines are found in the registry, your main chipset drivers are either not loaded or they are corrupted - if that's the case, it's common for your drive controllers to not be detected correctly, and because of that for optical drives to not be detected correctly, especially when they are connected to Secondary IDE.
In that case, go to the Intel web site and get the INF Update Utility for your 865PE chipset, and run it on your system.