Right... Here goes...

It's an LG HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-4167B
(About 2 years from first install and with about 3 hours total use time in that period. And, yes, it's as 'clean' as I can get it.)

Was OK before... No probs. Now, when attempting to play 'music' or DVD (including legit store-bought stuff) the computer crashes within variable periods of time but with a CDA it's a max of 30 seconds....
When attempting to copy/burn (with auto-play defeated and using Nero) it may be OK for 1 minute, max.

There were no developing symptoms... One day OK, next day not.

eventvwr reports a Bad block.

So, I did the Micro$haft shuffle and-

Uninstalled the drive in Safe Mode.
Restart.
Drive auto-detected and driver (the same one that worked before) installed OK.

Next went to regedit and opened the correct HKEY...
Deleted 'upperfilters' and 'lowerfilters'.
Restart.

Problem did not disappear.

I have also tried firmware iterations 11, 12 and 13. Same problems.


I admit it... I don't want to say, "HARDWARE PROB"...

Is it, in your collective opinions ?

No big deal cuz I am supposed to get a Light-Scribe drive for this person, anyway ! But.........

btw, the 'crash' is not a BSOD or anything even remotely entertaining... Just plain vanilla doh lock-up !

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The weirdness gets worse.

I've now had 3 BSODs...
Here's the crazy bit - After each BSOD the OS was corrupted and I had to do a recovery with the OS install CD...
It works ! Every time and you guys know how long it takes to do the restore from CD, right ?

I've 'updated' the driver (MS Update Site - No change...
Been to every CD/DVD info site and forum I can find...
Going crazy, especially with the fact that it behaves fine when doing the OS recovery but the problem is the same in Safe Mode.

C'mon... One of you must have an idea, other than to remind me that 35€ for a new one ain't no big deal !

If you have a spot open on the other controller's ribbon
cable, move it there.

Check the disk controller settings in the BIOS and see what
a little fiddling with those will do for you.

Try another ribbon cable.

If you overclocked anything, back it off one notch.

If none of those work, you already know what to do next.

Done the BIOS.
Also have tried four firmware versions. (At least the LG stuff allows you to revert to older firmware iterations !)Cable is next, and LAST, I think.
At least the MB is from just at the end of an era so it actually has two IDE connectors... Those were the days !
Thing is, although there may have been the usual slight degradation in HDD performance as the optical and HDD are sharing a cable for now, it still all worked OK before.Me, overclock ? Only my heart and mind !Is that spelled 35€ ?
Oh, well... At least they'll be able to play with Light Scribe !

Right...

I've tried new cables... 80 & 40...
HDD and CD/DVD-ROM now on separate cables.

What I cannot understand is, if it's the drive itself that is faulty, WHY does it function perfectly when I boot from the Windows install CD ?

This tells me that the drive is OK and that it's got to be a Windows issue.
No ?

ALL 'drivers', Ha Ha Ha Ha, are OK... There actually is no other driver available other than the default/generic MS one.
None of the versions of firmware update make the least difference.

Anybody ?

Try uninstalling Windows updates from around the time that drive
started failing. Look at any other software that was installed at about
the same time too, even if it doesn't seem to be related to disk access
at all.

Also, in the Device Mangler, see what happens when you "roll back"
that generic driver. There may have been an update anyway.

I'd just chuck it and get a new one...of course don't literally chuck it as it just might be some major windows problem....have you physically looked into your box to take a looksy?
you just might be experiencing heat issues which might be solved by removing the burner, blowing it off, and replacing it...also it might help to move any HDDs as far away as possible...

what you could do as an experiment is to get another 160GB max HDD, partition it and install a duplicate OS...if the burner then works on the new boot then you can be pretty darn positive its an OS issue...hell, if its the burner then I'd think it wouldn't complete the install process...either way you will upon finishing the 'experiment' have a nice dual boot system which comes in quite handy for situations not unlike you are experiencing...you get to have another working OS to boot into and use, you can do work remotely on the damaged OS, and if an OS HDD goes south you have a good alternative and might increase your odds of retrieving data....

you say you've installed firmware updates...did you by any chance notice if there are diagnostic/repair tools available?

the closest I've come to this situation was when a burner suddenly started going south, and did so pretty quickly...I tried the repair tools for the laser and no go, so I just got a new one and that was that....LG doesn't really impress me with their products, so A: that tends to give me the impression its probably the drive B: I'd get a 'name brand' like Sony, HP, Plextor...

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So Long and Thanks for All the Files
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