Drive not detected reliably

[Fred256]

Hi,

Using a Asmedia 106 Sata controller card and Pioneer BDR 207D
Motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-M56S-S3 and OS Win Xp SP3.

AnyDVDHD will only detect a disk if it is inserted before the computer boots up.
Removing it doesn't allow the next disk you put in to be detected.

Settings (unless a disks in at book) shows -
'Unknown disc type (empty?), AnyDVD turned off!'

Can I do anything about this ? Windows knows a disk is in/changed and Explorer shows the contents normally.

Thanks.

 

[tectpro]

Did you update the (BIOS and) driver for the the Mainboard and the driver for the SATA Controller?

 

[Hawk]

Hi,

Using a Asmedia 106 Sata controller card and Pioneer BDR 207D
Motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-M56S-S3 and OS Win Xp SP3.

AnyDVDHD will only detect a disk if it is inserted before the computer boots up.
Removing it doesn't allow the next disk you put in to be detected.

Settings (unless a disks in at book) shows -
'Unknown disc type (empty?), AnyDVD turned off!'

Can I do anything about this ? Windows knows a disk is in/changed and Explorer shows the contents normally.

Thanks.

Hmm, Fred256 this is interesting I have Asmedia 106 Satax controller for my computer and anydvd is working fine with it. Could you sent screenshot of device manager and show IDE ATA /ATAPi controller.

Refer to my screenshot for help.

 

[RBBrittain]

Hmm, Fred256 this is interesting I have Asmedia 106 Satax controller for my computer and anydvd is working fine with it. Could you sent screenshot of device manager and show IDE ATA /ATAPi controller.

Refer to my screenshot for help.

Look under "Storage controllers" as well as "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers". Yours appears to be an IDE emulation driver, but the OP could be using an AHCI driver instead; IIRC, AHCI drivers usually appear under "Storage controllers" instead. (We can eliminate RAID as this controller apparently doesn't support it.)

Also, look at whatever method used to configure the SATA controller (BIOS for on-board controllers, jumpers or config utilities for add-on cards, etc.) and verify that it's configured correctly for the type of driver, whether IDE emulation or AHCI.

 

[Fred256]

Thanks for the replies. I didn't update any BIOSs and just plugged the card in and the drive. When windows seen it I thought that was all that's needed. Please set me straight? !

RB- I don't see Storage Controllers, just Storage Volumes. Right thing ?

Hawk, mine is quite different but is that because of XP/Win7 ? I am going to install Win7 in a few days time (when I get up the nerve!). Perhaps it'll be OK after that.

Device manager s/shot attached.

Thanks.

 

[Jeff R 1]

I am going to install Win7 in a few days time (when I get up the nerve!). Perhaps it'll be OK after that.

Device manager s/shot attached.

Thanks.

This is getting off topic here but run this upgrade adviser first before installing W7, if you haven't already done so.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20

How old is your computer, what year is it from ?

 

[RBBrittain]

RB- I don't see Storage Controllers, just Storage Volumes. Right thing ?

In your XP Device Manager that section is called "SCSI and RAID controllers". I see your Asmedia SATA driver there, so it's probably an AHCI driver -- different from Hawk's.

Who made your controller card? Does it have any special configuration instructions, such as installing drivers from a CD and/or special instructions for setting up optical drives, especially in an AHCI configuration?

(Edit: I'd go with Jeff's suggestion on your Win7 upgrade, though the upgrade alone may solve your problem. XP regularly required special drivers for non-IDE controllers, especially SATA AHCI & RAID.)

 

[Fred256]

Apologies for the delay replying. I should know what AHCI is/means- but I don't!

Whatever install instructions came with the card (and I don't know the manufacturer now - box has gone) I'd have followed and once it looked OK in Device Manager (and showed up correctly in Explorer) would have been considered done and successful.

I built the comp myself and have continually upgraded components over the years. The current MB is a Gigabyte GA-M56S-S3. 8 GB DDR-2 (but only using 3 of them with XP) and CPU is AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+.

I've had a lot of trouble with addon SATA cards and just wish I'd bought a MB with more onboard ports. Many thanks for the tip about the Win7 upgrade check and I will certainly run that and be interested to see what it reports.

It'd be great if that sorted things; since my first msg here I've found my Plextor DVD burners hangs when playing CDDA. In everything I've tried - Winamp. VLC and EAC. That's also using an Addon card.

Regards, Kirk

 

[RBBrittain]

Apologies for the delay replying. I should know what AHCI is/means- but I don't!

AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) is the preferred interface for non-RAID SATA controllers like the Asmedia. The upside is it enables SATA features not enabled by IDE emulation mode, such as faster transfer speeds; the downside is you can't use XP to configure it in the same manner as IDE controllers, or SATA controllers in IDE emulation mode. Like RAID drivers (and even Virtual CloneDrive), SATA AHCI drivers are treated as SCSI drivers by XP; that's why your Device Manager group is called "SCSI and RAID controllers". Later Windows versions have explicit AHCI support (notice Hawk's SATA driver is in a different Device Manager group); that's why upgrading to Win7 may help.

Whatever install instructions came with the card (and I don't know the manufacturer now - box has gone) I'd have followed and once it looked OK in Device Manager (and showed up correctly in Explorer) would have been considered done and successful.

Too bad; I was hoping your card manufacturer had a configuration utility (I didn't find one on Asmedia's website). My suspicion is that your controller may not be negotiating transfer speeds, etc. correctly with your BD drive; but with an AHCI driver in XP, the only way to check that is with a configuration utility.

I built the comp myself and have continually upgraded components over the years. The current MB is a Gigabyte GA-M56S-S3. 8 GB DDR-2 (but only using 3 of them with XP) and CPU is AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+.

I've had a lot of trouble with addon SATA cards and just wish I'd bought a MB with more onboard ports. Many thanks for the tip about the Win7 upgrade check and I will certainly run that and be interested to see what it reports.

It'd be great if that sorted things; since my first msg here I've found my Plextor DVD burners hangs when playing CDDA. In everything I've tried - Winamp. VLC and EAC. That's also using an Addon card.

Taking another look at your Device Manager, it seems you have three separate IDE controllers (one on motherboard + one add-on; the third could be either), plus two SATA controllers (both set up as AHCI) and one RAID controller (can't tell if it's IDE, SATA or otherwise). You might want to take a much closer look at your drive configuration, including controllers, with an eye towards simplifying your setup where possible; that's well beyond the scope of this forum. Also, make sure your Win7 is 64-bit so you can use all 8 GB of RAM; all 32-bit OSes are limited to 3.5 GB or less of RAM (4 GB addressing limit for 32-bit chips less BIOS-reserved addresses).

 

[Fred256]

Hi RB, Thanks for the reply and tips. I've run Win7 advisor and the main thing seems to be

Your PC supports hardware assisted virtualization technology, but it must be enabled in the system BIOS before running Windows XP Mode.

Also Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 isn't compatible but that's probably hanging around unused from way back when. It said Office 97 is OK too but I'm sure I have some 16bit Access macros that may play up. The rest were OK or 'We don't have compatibility information about this version of the program.' AnyDVD was not listed.

I do have three SATA Addon cards, two are ePCI with 1x Sata and one is PCI with 1x IDE and 2xSata. It was a bit of a battle getting the optical drives working reliably on any of them. One card from Other World Computing was supposed to be pretty good (and handle two devices) but with 2 connected after 30 mins or so it make a load whistle and burned itself out. They sent 4 replacements but all failed. Never got a refund either.... anyway fingers crossed with Win7 and AHCI. If problems I'll shuffle thing around so the opticals use the MB ports. They seem the best.

 

[Fred256]

Moving back to the original problem, I felt I had to exonerate AnyDVD!

After moving all optical drives to the motherboard SATA controller, all problems vanished. And (fortunately all hard drives are behaving on the SATA addon card controllers).

It would seem these Addon cards are just not happy with optical drives. I also had trouble with EAC and even Winamp wouldn't play an audio disk.

So, if anyone has a similar problem, try the above and no more :bang: LOL

Regards, Kirk

 

[Adbear]

No surprise really, I never put optical drives on 3rd party cards as they've always given me problems

 

[i7win7]

external usb enclosures also work

I use 5 Vantec NexStar DX NST-530S2 5.25-Inch SATA to USB 2.0 Optical Drive External Enclosures. No hubs, each one on a seperate USB motherboard port. The drives are on a seperate power strip so I can get them off the UPS when not in use.