Peculiar optical drive problem...

[Kross]

I have two optical drives in my PC (details of system are in my sig)

Here's the problem, I just recently re-installed my XP-professional from scratch (Had to change hd, long story). I installed the correct chipset drivers, processor drivers, display drivers, etc. I have all the latest Microsoft updates (downloaded automatically every night). Everything seemed to be working beautifully.

Then, as of a week or so ago, both my optical drives have begun to act strange:

When I put a CD in either of them, they will not read it. As in, they will recognize that there is a CD in there (My Computer drive Icon will change from default to "CD-Rom") and that's it! Once I put the CD in, they won't even continue spinning, or TRY to read it. It is as if they know it's in there, but they forget. The exact same thing happens with a DVD.

If I try to see what's on the CD (thru My computer), it says "please insert a CD" or shows the CD as blank. These are original software/game CDs that I never had problems with. Furthermore, autorun doesn't work from the CDs either. And this problem doesn't just stop at that, no matter WHAT kind of CD I put in there (Software, Autorun, Burned, Blank), it will not let me open it or will say there is nothing in there.

Now bear in mind, the icon of the drive does change to the generic "CD Rom" Icon (or DVD-rom) if the CD is in there (in My Computer), but when I double-click on it to open it, it just says "Please insert a CD".

I DID get the drives to work last night...And I stumbled upon this by pure luck.

When I got frustrated, I right-clicked on My Computer-->Manage-->Disk Management. and when I selected the "Disk Management" option and it took it a second to load all the drives on my PC on that window (I have a 4-in-one Card reader, Two optical drives, one HD) all of a sudden the Optical drives came to life (started working/spinning) and it started showing me the contents of the CD in my computer and everything worked fine.

I installed the game, was happy with everything and went to bed. This morning the optical drives problem is back. The "Manage Drives" trick didn't work either...I had to restart the PC to make that trick work again, but I would really like to just fix this.

I have given as much details about my problem as I can, which is why this has turned out tobe such a loooong post. But I hope someone can offer me some advice! Thanks guys!

 

[Kross]

Oh and, just a few more details in case you guys need them...

BOTH the drives appear, for all purposes, to be working and installed perfectly. There are no exclaimation marks in Device manager and no error messages anywhere, startup or otherwise. As I mentioned earlier, BOTH the drives actually know there is a CD in them because their Icon changes to a generic "CD-Rom" (or DVD-Rom) when you put something in. But when you try to open it, it's either blank or you get a message, please insert a disc in the drive.

The IDE cables are connected correctly and the slave and master jumpers are correct as well. And yes, these drives used to work PERFECTLY before. This started happening about 8 days ago.

I installed the chipset drivers when I installed Windows and since then the drives had worked fine. I am trying to think what sort of update I did a week ago but the only thing I can think of is windows automatic updates.

Just to be sure, I installed my nVidia ForceWare Storage/IDE drivers, and the drive situation stayed the same. Initially I did not have the nVidia IDE drivers installed because someone had recommended that the MS ones would work better. Without those nVidia drivers the drives had worked fine previously so I know that wouldn't have been the problem, but I tried anyways.

I also took one of the drives off and tried different steps with the one LG DVD-RW drive in there by itself, nada. I am stumped now!

 

[gailraye]

is your system custom built? as far as software ect?

 

[Kross]

is your system custom built? as far as software ect?

Yes, in the sense that I did not just buy the entire system at once. I bought components and, with the help of my cousin, put the system together.

As far as the software goes. I bought an OEM Windows XP Professional CD with the Motherboard and Processor and that is what I installed in addition to the other software that game with the different components.

As I mentioned above, everything had been working perfectly until about 8 days ago when the cd/dvd drives starting acting weird.

 

[gailraye]

well i agree with you in that your drives are acting strange...i was thinking if maybe you had a diag partition..but if its all custom than you prob don't...

can you boot to a cd? like the os cd? just curious...

 

[Kross]

well i agree with you in that your drives are acting strange...i was thinking if maybe you had a diag partition..but if its all custom than you prob don't...

can you boot to a cd? like the os cd? just curious...

That's the funny thing, I can boot from a CD! And like I said, if I do that Disk Management trick (Right-Click on My Computer-->Manage-->Disk Management) my drives come alive again.

This of course makes my issue that much more difficult because it means there is nothing wrong with the IDE cable, or the drives themselves since they do work in certain circumstances.

It just seems like they are "asleep" for the lack of a better word. And the Disk Management utilities sort of awakens them and forces them to read the CD in them. The same for bootup.

Maybe I should take this one step at a time...what does the Disk Management utilitiy do once you click on it? It says at the bottom "Loading disk data" which is when my drives come alive and start spinning and reading the very CD they couldn't read before.