What the heck?

[Parak]

Hiya guys,

Just recently got a new mobo, so after a fresh format I tried burning 2 cds with my usual settings on a lite on 52x with the latest firmware. Both cds are reported 100% damaged in cd speed afterwards, even though I can read them fine. Stuff like this never happened previously, and I suspect the problem may be the fact that the drive is on the end of a 36" cable (even though I heard of no such problems)

Any ideas? Thanks ;o

[cfitz]

I suspect the problem may be the fact that the drive is on the end of a 36" cable

That sounds reasonable to me. The maximum allowed length for an IDE cable is 18 inches, 12 inches for UDMA/66

cfitz

[Parak]

Meh, just tried a regular ribbon cable, and it still gives 100% damaged :/

[cfitz]

What do you mean by a regular cable? A 40 conductor IDE cable, or an 80 conductor cable for UDMA? What transfer mode are you using?

cfitz

[cfitz]

The more I think about it, the less happy I am with the cable as the source of the damaged sectors. I am still recommending that you use a cable that is at most 18" long. Although longer cables are sold and may work, they are outside of the specification and there is no sense in pushing one's luck. Also, if you are running UDMA, I would recommend using an 80 pin cable, although it isn't mandatory for UDMA/33 and lower.

You report that newly burned discs have 100% damaged blocks, even though you are using the same drive as before. I have a couple of questions:

1. You mentioned the latest firmware. Did you upgrade the drive's firmware as part of the mobo upgrade (and thus it changed also)?

2. Have you run scandisc or CD quality check on any discs that you burned before and tested clean before the mobo upgrade? In other words, are the damaged sectors due to writing or reading?

cfitz

[Parak]

It's a 18 inch 80 pin udma ribbon cable.

1. I updated the firmware after I reformatted after the motherboard install. I did not burn any cds in between.

2. Yes, all cds came out 100% good on the previous motherboard and/or firmware.

[cfitz]

1. I updated the firmware after I reformatted after the motherboard install. I did not burn any cds in between.

Drats! Another variable in the mix. It would have been nice to isolate the mobo change from the firmware update, but, we can only work with what we've got... Of course, at some point it may be worth reflashing back to the original burner firmware.

2. Yes, all cds came out 100% good on the previous motherboard and/or firmware.

Do those previously written CDs still test out 100% good with the new motherboard and firmware?

cfitz

[Parak]

Aha, good question, let me test ;o

[Parak]

Hum, narrowed the problem down to the secondary ide controller. If I switch the drive to the primary controller, cd speed reports no errors... Guess I'll be now looking for some motherboard tech support ;/