kony wrote in message . ..
On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 18:47:34 GMT, devilboy
wrote:


I then installed the drive into an AMD K2 450 with about 468MB of RAM
running Win2k Server SP4 (a machine I pieced together). The drive was
recognized and I get the same errors with Nero CD-DVD Speed on this
machine. On this machine the write test passed but at 8X. I have the
drive hooked up to the second IDE chain as master. DMA is disabled
according to Nero System Info but I cannot activate it. According to
the Yamaha manual there should be a Settings tab in Device Manager
where DMA mode can be switched on but that tab doesn't exist on either
of my machines.


This DMA issue is what I'd look at first. Can we assume
you're seeing relatively high CPU utilization in the Nero
tests?

Are you looking for the DMA mode setting on the XP box in
the properties for the controller, not the drive (you should
be) ?

If the controller channel is where you don't see any DMA
options, try reinstalling the motherboard chipset driver.
This is for the ATA interface, the SCSI should have DMA
working without a checkbox BUT it may still need the
motherboard chipset drivers functioning properly for
busmastering in order to work properly.

The K6 box, it's a bad example because the Super-7 chipsets
can be really picky about (darn near anything), the best bet
for that box (and consider it for your XP box too) is to
update the motherboard bios and use newest chipset drivers
available.

The CPU is low during the tests. Typically single digits. The drive
is now passing write tests intermittenly. I may have gotten lucky
with the other two tests.

I updated the IDE drivers through Windows update, set the channel to
DMA if available. It came up as DMA 2. The HDDs are DMA 5. The
writes failed before and after the IDE driver update.

I opened the drive and cleaned it. The lens was barely dusty. I
brushed it off with a dry Qtip. I put a slight bit of oil on the
rails for the head. The head actuates when a disk is inserted. It
looks like it tries to read disks twice then bombs. The LED goes from
purple to blinking blue stops blinking, then blinks again before
returning to purple. Steady purple LED signifies an empty drive.
Blinking blue signals a read. Solid blue means a disk is inserted.
That's what the LED should be when the drive has a disk in it. The
drive is not even getting that far regardless of what is happening on
the computer. It goes from blinking blue to solid purple. That
should be independent of OS, drivers or anything on the computer I
would think?

I'm pretty much getting ready to write it off and buy a DVD burner.
The thing that gets me is the drive worked great for two years. I've
been running it on the same machine the whole time. I reinstalled the
OS once but the drive always worked well.