[CupOJoe]

I have a recurring problem with my SONY DVD RW DW-D26A burner. For many years it worked just fine, and took about 7-8 minutes to burn a disk. Then, for reasons I didn't understand, it began taking 40-60 minutes to burn a disk. Finally I used AdAware and that seemed to fix the problem for a while but it has returned. I have tried several virus scanners and adware-malware programs and nothing seems to help. The burner is set to DMA and not PIO, I have disabled and reinstalled the drive and reinstalled the drivers.

Specifically, what is happening is that the used read buffer during burning goes up to 100% and fluctuates between 100% and 98% rather than going up to 100% and moving down to 0% or so. So since it's only using about 2% of the buffer, it is only burning a little at a time. This does not affect the quality of the burn: I use DVD-ROMS for data storage and no files have been lost, it just takes a while.

Another issue is that when I am playing videos using VLC or another video player from the DVD drive, the audio "pops" occasionally. This does not happen when I play a video from my hard drive. So it is not a problem with burning alone or specifically with Nero, which is what I use to burn disks.

My best guess at this point is that there is adware that is somehow sitting in the buffer that my existing software (Avira, CC Cleaner, Malware, NOD32, SBlaster, Spybot, and Ad-Aware: and I only have Avira loaded: I use the others individually) cannot catch. Is there a better choice for catching whatever it is that's infected the buffer or is this indicative of another problem?

Thanks

-Joe

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Uninstall the secondary IDE port

To do that, open Device Manager as follows. Right-click on My Computer, select Properties, click on the Hardware tab click on the Device Manager button, click on the plus sign to the left of IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller, right-click on Secondary IDE Channel, click on Uninstall.

Reboot to make the changes active ...

After booting Windows will automatically reinstall the IDE channel and the DVD (or CD) drive. This Plug-n-Play process can take a little while, so give it a minute after the boot process finishes.

Check or reactivate DMA

But this may not always be not enough, because unfortunately Windows does not always automatically activate DMA on a DVD or CD drive. You have to check and, if necessary, tell Windows to try to use DMA first. It is possible that Windows XP with Service Pack 2 re-enables DMA automatically on reboot, but I have not tested this yet.

To re-enable DMA, go to Device Manager again. Right-click on My Computer, select Properties, click on the Hardware tag, click on the Device Manager button, click on the plus sign to the left of IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller, double-click on the secondary IDE channel, click on Extended Settings and change the relevant setting from PIO only to DMA when available.

On Windows NT and 2000 you now have to reboot a second time, but Windows XP applies the change instantly. Then you can go to the same place in Device Manager again and check whether the device is now actually using DMA mode. If so, all is well.

Note that many CD and DVD drives only use UDMA-2, because their data rate is much lower than that of a hard disk. This is normal ...

PIO mode is enabled by default in the following situations:
...
For repeated DMA errors. Windows XP will turn off DMA mode for a device after encountering certain errors during data transfer operations. If more that six DMA transfer timeouts occur, Windows will turn off DMA and use only PIO mode on that device.

In this case, the user cannot turn on DMA for this device. The only option for the user who wants to enable DMA mode is to uninstall and reinstall the device.

Windows XP downgrades the Ultra DMA transfer mode after receiving more than six CRC errors. Whenever possible, the operating system will step down one UDMA mode at a time (from UDMA mode 4 to UDMA mode 3, and so on).
...

Of course, drive firmware being quite complex and certainly containing programming defects of its own, it is not all that difficult to produce such errors. In my case a scratched DVD and later also an unreadable (overburned) CD did the trick, got the drive to choke and Windows to disable DMA for good.

[happyrock]

Uninstall the secondary IDE port

To do that, open Device Manager as follows. Right-click on My Computer, select Properties, click on the Hardware tab click on the Device Manager button, click on the plus sign to the left of IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller, right-click on Secondary IDE Channel, click on Uninstall.

Reboot to make the changes active ...

After booting Windows will automatically reinstall the IDE channel and the DVD (or CD) drive. This Plug-n-Play process can take a little while, so give it a minute after the boot process finishes.

Check or reactivate DMA

But this may not always be not enough, because unfortunately Windows does not always automatically activate DMA on a DVD or CD drive. You have to check and, if necessary, tell Windows to try to use DMA first. It is possible that Windows XP with Service Pack 2 re-enables DMA automatically on reboot, but I have not tested this yet.

To re-enable DMA, go to Device Manager again. Right-click on My Computer, select Properties, click on the Hardware tag, click on the Device Manager button, click on the plus sign to the left of IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller, double-click on the secondary IDE channel, click on Extended Settings and change the relevant setting from PIO only to DMA when available.

On Windows NT and 2000 you now have to reboot a second time, but Windows XP applies the change instantly. Then you can go to the same place in Device Manager again and check whether the device is now actually using DMA mode. If so, all is well.

Note that many CD and DVD drives only use UDMA-2, because their data rate is much lower than that of a hard disk. This is normal ...

PIO mode is enabled by default in the following situations:
...
For repeated DMA errors. Windows XP will turn off DMA mode for a device after encountering certain errors during data transfer operations. If more that six DMA transfer timeouts occur, Windows will turn off DMA and use only PIO mode on that device.

In this case, the user cannot turn on DMA for this device. The only option for the user who wants to enable DMA mode is to uninstall and reinstall the device.

Windows XP downgrades the Ultra DMA transfer mode after receiving more than six CRC errors. Whenever possible, the operating system will step down one UDMA mode at a time (from UDMA mode 4 to UDMA mode 3, and so on).
...

Of course, drive firmware being quite complex and certainly containing programming defects of its own, it is not all that difficult to produce such errors. In my case a scratched DVD and later also an unreadable (overburned) CD did the trick, got the drive to choke and Windows to disable DMA for good.

[CupOJoe]

I understand what you are saying, I believe that may be the problem, as I had inserted a disk recently that had a CRC issue. The properties were still set to DMA when available but if they had downgraded to a different level I could see where reinstalling the IDE Controllers would work.

However, doing this has made the problem much worse. Originally I had simply uninstalled the DVD Burner and reinstalled it, which worked fine but didn't solve the problem. But when I uninstalled the secondary drive and rebooted, it rebooted finding a new device: an "82801DB Ultra ATA Storage Controller". The drivers for this were, apparently, already installed, however, when it went through the New Hardware Wizard it was unable to complete the installation and the device was (is) listed as in conflict in the Device Manager. I located drivers for it, however, they were older than the drivers that had been installed so I canceled the installation.

I am going to uninstall the device once more and try rebooting and reinstalling the drive, I will write back and let you know what happened.

UPDATE: I uninstalled the secondary IDE controller again and once more it went through the Add New Hardware Wizard and was unable to finish loading the hardware. I rebooted and it prompted me to go through the Add New Hardware Wizard once more, but I canceled it, and the Device manager listed it without conflicts, and the problem is solved: I burned five disks right away which each took about five minutes, plus the audio on a video playback is clear, no "popping".

Thanks very much for the help, now I know what to do if this happens again!

Sincerely,

-Joe

Edited by CupOJoe, 14 December 2008 - 04:31 AM.

[happyrock]

your welcome...and thanks for letting us know...