[mrebean]

recently i was in the BIOS chaning around settings for the primary and secondary devices. all i did was change everything to off. when i was done, i put all the ones i changed back to the way they wer ( auto ).

since then, when i boot up, it stays at the BIOS loading screen for a long time, and then i have to press F2 to boot into windows normally. also since then, i have not been able to burn anything on my dvd drives (plextor 708a & pioneer 111d). it gives me the following error: "the request could not be performed because of an I/O device error"

i went back into the BIOS and changed the primary device 0 to auto and the rest to off, and that has resolved the boot up problem, but i still have the I/O error.

i think the hard drive is on the primary and the dvd drives are on the secondary ( i cant comfirm since im at work ).

do what settings in the bios do i need for everything to be correct?? do i need to change an jumper settings on the drives??

any help to put me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

thanks in advance

jR

 

[Triple6]

You likely need to enable the IDE channels that the optical drives are on and set the empty one to OFF. If you're not sure where are the drives are connected then open up the case and check, usually the optical drives are connected together on the Secondary IDE as Master and Slave but not always. Usually if you get an error at boot up it'll tell you why the error occurred.

 

[mrebean]

set the primary device 0 (hard drive) to auto w/ cable select jumper settings and device 1 to none. on the secondary, i set each to auto and set the jumpers to master and slave accordingly.

everything boots up just fine =)

did a test burn and everything went fine, then i did an acutal burn = success!

tried another file w/o testing first and got the i/o error again =(

 

[Triple6]

And are these the same disc's you've always used?

 

[mrebean]

yes, same discs. verbs dual layered w/o ever a coaster ....and taiyo yuden 1x layer bulk packs

 

[Triple6]

What if you try disconnecting one drive...

If you go to Device Manager(Control Panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager) and check the transfer mode for the optical drives and the hard drive.

They should be in DMA mode not PIO.

 

[mrebean]

i changed device 0 on the primary from dma > pio. ive tested one dvdr and it worked. i will test w/ a dvd dl tomorrow

 

[Triple6]

OK, but PIO is slower and should not be used. Are you sure the drives are jumpered OK and set correctly in the BIOS. Is DMA enabled in the BIOS? Are you using an 80 wire IDE cable for the drives? If you're using a 40 wire cable that might explain why it errors in DMA mode and not PIO.

 

[mrebean]

would a heavily fragmented hard drive cause the error. for intance, if a large iso file is located on the fragmented hard drive ( which is the 2nd hard drive, run off of a pci sata controller ), would trying to burn that file result in my i/o device error?

i tried moving that file over to the c: drive to see if it would make a difference, and during the transfer, i got the same error.

 

[Triple6]

No fragmentation would not cause that. Improperly configured/connected drives would as would a failing drive. Find the brand of the drive and use the manufacturer's diagnostics to test it.

 

[mrebean]

i only ask that because i ran diskeeper and that drive was REALLY bad. in the list of the worst files, that one ISO file i was trying to burn / move, it was at the top of the list. after a couple of defags, i tried to transfer the file again and it worked!

then i tried to burn the file once it was on the other hard drive, and it burned just fine.

so it seems that it may be a hard drive problem if anything. or would a bad ide or sata cable be problematic as well?

both hard drives are maxtor, and the max blast software doesnt have any diagnostic utilities that show if the drive is failing.

 

[Triple6]

A cable could cause problems too. It would seem the transfer rate is not fast enough. Have you changed the drives in Device Manager to use DMA again?

Download and run PowerMax: http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/M...oftware+Downloads/Top+Downloads&downloadID=22 it'll test the drives.

 

[mrebean]

yes, i set it back to dma before i degfragmented. i forgot i had that program from maxtor. i tried it out, but it only detects drives that are on the primary & secondary cable ...not my 250gb hard drive connected through the pci sata controller card.

the pci card isnt from maxtor, though i do have one from them before i got my current card. but i dont think the manufacturer would matter when it detects all drives that are connected.

 

[Triple6]

Can you temporarily connect it to one of the motherboard's IDE channels?

 

[mrebean]

unfortunately no ...connects only through sata cable ( that im aware of ).

here is a link to the model though:

http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/menuitem.5d2b41d3cef51dfe29dd10a191346068/?channelpath=/en_us/Support/Product%20Support/Desktop%20Storage/DiamondMax%20Family/DiamondMax%20Plus%209

 

[Triple6]

And you motherboard doesn't have any SATA connectors then?

What motherboard do you have?

What type of IDE cable connects the DVD drives? 40 or 80 wire?

 

[mrebean]

no onboard sata, thus why i had the pci adapter

 

[Triple6]

What about the type of IDE cable in use on the drives?

Or updating the controller card's drivers?

 

[mrebean]

i have the most up to date drivers for both the sata controllers i have. took out the one that was in there and reinstalled the older one ...still the same results.

the ide cables on all drives are the flat kind ( not rounded ).

it definitely seems to be either hard drive or ide cable related since i still get the error when i try to transfer the larger files from the secondary ( sata ) drive to the primary c:/ drive.