Philips CDRW trouble

[masterchicker]

my cdrw is kinda old and I don't want to buy a new one unless I'm sure that it's totally not functioning. The scenario is this:

When I start my PC, it detects my CDRW but after sometime, an hour or two, my CDRW without any warning will not be detected by my PC. The device cannot be found in the device manager and I could no longer open it manually by pressing the eject button. I don't think its destroyed because it can still burn a CD if you burn right away. IDE Cable trouble perhaps?

Here is the setup of my devices:
Primary Master - Hard Drive
Primary Slave - DVD Rom
Secondary Master - CDRW
Secondary Slave - CD Rom

 

[masterchicker]

Could it be, my cdrw is drained with power supply because of the devices and auxilliary fans? I think it's a possibility.

Help needed. Thanks.

 

[AckNack]

Couple of guesses:
May be heat related...as in the PC warms up and some connection gets warm enough to expand and lose connection.

Try reseating all the cables by unplugging them and replugging them in.

I've also seen this happen when a logic board is going bad.

What OS are you using? I've seen Windows 98 do this quite a few times. You could try loading 16 bit drivers in config.sys and autoexec.bat, if you're using Windows 98.

AckNack

http://www.diypctech.com

 

[micker377]

More info needed: What CPU - what power supply rating - how old is this computer?

 

[masterchicker]

I'm running on dual boot Win98se and WinXP Professional and my computer and CDRW is 3 years old. The CPU is P4 2.0 and the power supply is 300watts. Memory is 786MB.

 

[BadBigBen]

Hola,

well first of all, yes it sounds kinda underpowered (300w)... but the most common thing that happens, when the drive disappears from the device manager, is a dying drive or bad cable (power conn or IDE)...

I would suggest you unhook the CD-ROM (you can always use the DVD to read your CD's), that way one of the power USERS is off the hook... check all Power connectors for looseness (cables in the plug can get loose due to time and motion)...

Ben


If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer...