CD-RW keeps Rebooting me

I am at a loss. My CD-RW keeps rebooting me. The reason I know that it is my CD-RW is because it does not happen when I unplug the IDE cable from it. No reboots or lockups at all. I have a HP CD-Writer 8000 series. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

PS: I had to retype this thread 2 times because of this problem

 

xbot,

My friend had the same problem with his HP writer, and it only started occuring when he got WinXP.. by any chance have you recently installed XP?

He solved the problem by downloading a new driver from the HP site. There seems to be alot of hardware out there, not all of it old, which is incompatible with XP.

 

I am using WIN98SE. I have tried to find the driver for this series but HP's site does not list this 8000 as a series. It has the 8010, 8020, etc. series. I am still trying to figure it out. Thanks for your help!!

 

It sounds as though the drive itself may have an intermittent problem. Try connecting the IDE cable, but leave the power connection off. Let us know if the effect occurs then.

 

Ok...I also have a Compaq DVD Drive so I hooked it to the IDE cable and it locked up on me also. So I don't think it is the drive. One question. I have a UDMA/100 IDE cable connecting my CD-RW and/or DVD Drive to the Secondary IDE channel slot. Could this be the problem?

 

An 80-pin cable, like the one you're using, shouldn't cause any troubles with ATA33 devices, but, FOR SURE, try a different IDE cable!!

 

It's not the cable. I tried a 40 pin and it still locked up. I am still at a loss. Thanks for all the help ya'll. Much appreciated.

 

A friend had a similar problem where the system would shut down unexpectedly and reboot (but not during the booting process).

If I understand, it is not an intermiitent, but a solid failure isolated to the device and the cable checks out OK. My friend's problem was due to the P/S, but booting was OK. Apparently, wattage of the P/S was marginal during usage with wattage hog peripherals engaged and the normal surges and voltage drops of the line intermittently caused the problem. An installation of a 300 P/S corrected the problem.

 

Hi, Thanks for the post. I already have a 300 watt P/S installed. What makes me think it is not anything to do with the drive or the cable is that it does it on all drives I connect to IDE Channel 2. I don't want to hook my "slow" CD-RW to the slave off of my UDMA 100 Hard drive on IDE Channel 1 but that is the only way it works. Weird, 'eh??

 

I HAVE FIGURED IT OUT AND FIXED THE PROBLEM!!! I started checking around in Device Manager and look at my HD Controller Settings and the Primary IDE channel was the only one listed. I thought this was weird so I delved a little further and found that the controller was set to default(I don't how why...it may be setr that way when WIN98SE installes) so I changed it to both IDE Channels were enabled and my system has not hung up at all. Just future FYI. Again, thanks for all the help and I hope this info helps someone in the future.

 

Thanks for your reply. An interesting and challenging problem that you have solved.