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Thread ID: 39411	2003-11-06 00:18:00	CVD/CD-RW COMBO DRIVE PROBLEMS	Tony.br (4018)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
189507	2003-11-06 00:18:00	I have had the weirdest problem and although I have come to a temporary resolution, I thought I would relate the story and see if anyone has experienced a similar problem. I running a Gigabyte MB with a Celeron 500 and 512 meg Ram running WIN98. Recently I had the need to run DVD’s and fortunately I also had a chance to sell my CD-Writer so I purchased an AOPEN Combo Drive. (DVD Reader / CD Writer) This worked like a charm in every respect for about 2 months when suddenly it refused to read CD’s at all. Auto-start CD’s would appear to read then lock up the system. I tried 3 different CD-Roms and a brand new CD Writer of a different brand that I was able to borrow and all worked perfectly. Obviously the new Combo Drive was faulty, so I contacted the supplier and was sent a forward replacement. I fitted this and to my horror it was the same. There had to be some other cause so I returned the new drive with apologies. I gave some thought to the problem and in the end, I fitted another Hard Drive and installed a fresh copy of Windows 98SE. I found that this worked perfectly so in the end I bit the bullet and reinstalled WIN98 from scratch then slowly started to reinstall all my applications. After each session I created an image file of the installation in case the problem returned. Recently I realised that the system was slower than the previous install and remembered I had not installed the VIA 4 in 1 drivers. I installed the last recommended version for WIN98 (v4.35) but upon reboot, I found the problem had returned. I rolled it back using the Image file and repeated the test with the 4 in 1 driver that came with the MB (v4.19) but the same thing occurred. I again restored my system with the Image file and after some thought, came to the conclusion that some software I had installed must have been conflicting with the VIA drivers. In the previous installation, the drivers were in place and what software it was caused the problem when installed. In the new installation, the software (or utility) must have been in place and only caused a problem when I installed the VIA drivers. It is all academic now as I have made the decision to start on the upgrade path and will shortly be getting a new case, MB, CPU, Memory etc. However the exact mechanism of a fault that can affect only one brand of drive eludes me and I would love any comments from anyone who may have experienced a similar fault. Any thoughs or comments would be greatly appreciated	Tony.br (4018)
189508	2003-11-06 00:29:00	Well the VIA drivers control the chipset, which uses the IDE which is where I'm assuming your drive is connected to? When I read the start of your post and you mentioned that you thought the drive was faulty I was wondering if you had installed the latest drivers of your writer and not the ones from the CD which could have been a few months old. Buy a mobo that doesn't use the VIA chipset, although I'm not saying VIA is that bad.	Kame (312)
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