My PlexWriter not working anymore... any help?

TorqueTorque
edited August 2003 in Hardware
Hey guys,

Well, i just had an upgrade to XP recently ( as well as a new proc, and new mobo - the nf7s and a barton 2800) and just wanted to burn something today.

I go to burn it and it stalls at about 9%. Ok, so i use a different program. I went from nero to alcohol 120 to cdrwin and all stop at 6-9%. The progress bar jumps there quickly and then totally halts. Then maybe i think that is the media... I try i different cd-r and same thing happens. OK, maybe my original is broken, even though i know its fine. I try something that i have previously burned successfully and again, it failed.

I simulated the burn with one of the programs and it completed successfully. SO now i know its not the media, or the program and it has to be my burner. Just so you know, the plex could read cd's fine, it just cant write.

The funny thing is, when i used nero and i drag and dropped it burnt fine, i mean all the data was on the cd-r. But bin-cue's, iso and all that just doesn't work! ARG!

I have a PlexWriter 12/10/32A and plextor's website says it should work with win xp drivers... well its not working and this is pissing me off.

Tried reinstalling the drivers. no avail.

does anybody have any clue as to what could possibly be the problem. Because this burner worked fine in win2kpro, and i would think that is should work under win xp. am i wrong?

any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks

Torque

Comments

  • stoopidstoopid Albany, NY New
    edited August 2003
    Try burning at a slower speed (will write at slower speeds if the drive's dying). If that doesn't work, find the latest ASPI drivers, follow the instructions for their installation carefully. I've seen a lot of ripping/burning issues solved through aspi updating. Also, trying using a laser lense cleaner. It may have some dirt/hair on it (writing is a more sensitive process than reading which may be explained here as well). If you really get daring, open the drive up and see if there's hair wrapped around the motor or dirt in the tracks, any fluctuation as the laser makes its journey across the disc can cause failures.
  • TorqueTorque
    edited August 2003
    thanks for the help.

    im at work now but i will try that when i get home.

    two questions... do you know where i could find the latest aspi drivers? Im just using the winxp ones...

    and, the funny thing is, that it can burn things with drag and drop. just not an iso or a bin-cue... and always the same percent makes me think something mroe funny is up.

    ill update ya later on whats up.
    thanks again
  • stoopidstoopid Albany, NY New
    edited August 2003
    Originally posted by Torque
    and, the funny thing is, that it can burn things with drag and drop. just not an iso or a bin-cue... and always the same percent makes me think something mroe funny is up.

    That's the reason I suggested the aspi update, writing large bin files is a different process than drag/drop...

    http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/support/driverdetail.html?sess=no&language=English+US&cat=/Product/ASPI-4.70&filekey=aspi_471a2.exe]Aspid drivers file

    Installation Instructions
  • TorqueTorque
    edited August 2003
    adaptec drivers would work with my plextor?

    wouldnt adaptec drivers only be for adaptec products...?

    cuz when i check now what drivers i have for my plextor it is microsoft xp default drivers...

    plus the link for the drivers is broken, but i found where i could dl the 4.71a ones.. this it?
    http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/support/driverdetail.html?sess=no&language=English+US&filekey=aspi_v471.exe

    ill try it once i get home...

    thanks again.
  • stoopidstoopid Albany, NY New
    edited August 2003
    Yep, that's the ones...

    Adaptec just manages these drivers, which is why they don't allow hosting of them anywhere else... aspi are drivers used by windows, not the specific products (meaning it's not part of the hardware's code but rather part of windows)... adaptec, I believe, owns the rights to the aspi layer technology.
  • TorqueTorque
    edited August 2003
    should i get these like you pointed out (4.71): http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/su...y=aspi_v471.exe

    or these, which seem to be later (4.72a2):
    http://download.adaptec.com/software_pc/aspi/aspi_v472a2.exe

    thanks
  • TorqueTorque
    edited August 2003
    k, got home and tried the following.

    I disabled native burning utilities under winXP by going to my plextor properites.
    I burnt at 1 speed on my current aspi's. FAIL
    I updated the aspi's (I tried both of the ones listed above).
    I burnt at max (12x) speed and. FAIL
    I burnt at 1 speed. FAIL
    I followed the previous methods with a different program then nero, and the same results.
    Cleaned the laser as best i could.
    Tried again. FAIL.

    It always goes to 9%, gets there quick and then i get the same error - "queueing failed!"

    any other thing i could try man?

    again, thanks for the help.
    torque

    edit: could it have anything to do with my hard drive. with my upgrades i got a maxtor 160gb. and i connected it with the serillel thing that came with my mobo. I mean, after 9% i hear the cd spinning but the queue fails... maybe it just cant find that or what?
    arg...

    edit2: when i go to device manager it says its a scsi cd rom drive... dunno if this matters. Is the Plexwriter 12/10/32a even compatible with XP?
  • stoopidstoopid Albany, NY New
    edited August 2003
    Yeah, it's compatible with XP... I remembering having a cdr drive that detected as a scsi too, no harm there...

    I'm at a loss. There's is a firmware update (for the 12/10/32A drive, which is probably what you have). Looks like a few prior ones dealt with some pretty specific windows issues...

    http://www.plextor.com/english/support/downloads/1210au110.exe

    Maybe the formware will help, but at this point I'm lost as to why it isn't working :(. The fact it still zips straight to "queueing failed" every time tells me either the drive's got damaged electronics or something quirky's going on with your system... unsure what the hell would cause that level of lag though, to cause the basic queue process to fail...
  • TorqueTorque
    edited August 2003
    first off, thanks for the help stoopid. i did previously update the firmware... no help.

    good news though, i fixed it.

    after my last post... just the plain idea of my dvd rom drive and my burner showing up as scsi just bothered me... i dunno why, it just didnt seem right, as they never did that before.

    so, i look at my atapi/ide controller drivers. and they are the ones that came with my nf7-s....

    i decided to chuck these ide drivers and roll back to simple, plain old win XP ide drivers...

    rebooted... checked device manager and viola, no scsi stuff...

    burnt an iso... SUCCESS! burnt a bin-cue... SUCCESS!

    man, im happy. afterwords i did some research, and i seems that nforce2 mobo drivers install shotty drivers for the ide and you cant burn with those controllers... for now, im sticking with default xp drivers... hey, if it aint broke - dont fix it.

    again, thanks for all the help man, and a happy 100th post for me!
  • stoopidstoopid Albany, NY New
    edited August 2003
    wow, nice catch :)

    I would never have guessed XP had detection issues, it's been 100% sweet for me on numerous custom builds (never a nf7-s though).

    At least you got 100 posts and I got to stretch some troubleshooting muscles :D
  • EQuitoEQuito SoCal, USA
    edited August 2003
    Originally posted by stoopid
    I would never have guessed XP had detection issues...
    It's not XP, is the NVidia SW IDE drivers he was using. Those drivers (just like HPT or Sil drivers) make Windows detect the drives as SCSI and they're very buggy btw.

    Torque:

    FYI: if you don't have the Plextor set as UDMA2/ATA33, install a jumper (horizontally) in the first two pins to the left where it says "RESERVE". It will improve 'read' speeds quite a bit.

    Good luck!
  • stoopidstoopid Albany, NY New
    edited August 2003
    Originally posted by EQuito
    It's not XP, is the NVidia SW IDE drivers he was using. Those drivers (just like HPT or Sil drivers) make Windows detect the drives as SCSI and they're very buggy btw.

    Ah, gotcha! That was probably why I missed that as I rarely use hardware that isn't Intel or Via.
  • TorqueTorque
    edited August 2003
    FYI: if you don't have the Plextor set as UDMA2/ATA33, install a jumper (horizontally) in the first two pins to the left where it says "RESERVE". It will improve 'read' speeds quite a bit.

    can you elaborate a bit... im not too sure what u mean by "Set as..." it is detected as an ide now, and not scsi...

    also, why exactly would placing a jumper at reserve increase read speeds? what are the actions behind that?

    thanks
  • EQuitoEQuito SoCal, USA
    edited August 2003
    Go to device manager and open properties for the IDE channel holding the Plextor. You should see something like the pic below (highlighted area). If not, the drive is running on PIO mode when it should be running UDMA2. The jumper forces the drive to run as an ATA33 device thus increasing read speeds. The drive cannot write faster than it was designed for so the jumper will not increase write speeds.
    I've used that same drive for a few years with the jumper installed and many old members here have used it like that also.
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