Philips Dual Layer DVDRW Drive £31.02

RedOnRed

smashed wrote:

http://www.play.com/play247.asp?pa=rts&page=title&r=ELEC&title=866708

Pioneer DVR-110D
£29.99 delivered.
The best bet if you ask me

Well I just got one of these drives and it works perfectly, apart from the minor fact that it won't play any disks that is.

It gets assigned a drive letter, but as soon as I put any DVD disk in it it changes from saying DVD drive to CD drive in explorer and hangs.

I've tried putting it on cable select, master and slave, changing the region code, uninstalling and reinstalling it half a dozen times etc, etc and flashing the firmware which errors and tells me it has the wrong firmware already on it and it can't be changed.

I'm a computer engineer - so sort of know roughly what i'm doing.

It's going back to play.com and please remind me to heed my own advice in future.

Another thing to note is that (like a lot of Pioneer stuff) it looks and feels cheap. Has no Pioneer markings on it and is noisey when closing. Both my LG drives (DVD & CDRW) seem far better quality.

blinky

Check the DMA settings

RedOnRed

blinky wrote:

Check the DMA settings

If I was using an archaic old OS like DOS or pre Win 2000 I might well be looking into config.sys, autoexec.bat, IRQ's and DMA's. Thankfully XP usually means we don't need to go down those roads any more.

It's already Plug & Play auto detected all OK with a drive letter. It's replacing an existing DVD drive. If it wasn't, I would kind of suspect a system config issue.

As stated before, when trying to flash the firmware it's saying it's got the wrong nonsupported firmware on it which can't be changed. I'm pretty confident that is the issue.

blinky

XP has a read error counter for drives. If the number of read errors exceeds a certain number (5 I think) then it will switch a drive from DMA to PIO. If the drive is replaced the counter is not reset, leaving your new drive in DMA.

To check the DMA or PIO open device manager -> Expand IDE/ATAPI Controllers (you will see a list of your Primary and Secondary IDE channels (S-ATA channels appear in here too). Select the relevant IDE channel then right click and select properties. Then select advanced settings.

To force a change back from PIO to DMA you need to do some registry hacking.
http://www.michna.com/kb/WxDMA.htm

The White retail box version of the Philips drive is no longer on Web Exclusive but the Black OEM version is still available.

MoneySavingGenius_2

RedOnRed wrote:

If I was using an archaic old OS like DOS or pre Win 2000 I might well be looking into config.sys, autoexec.bat, IRQ's and DMA's. Thankfully XP usually means we don't need to go down those roads any more.

It's already Plug & Play auto detected all OK with a drive letter. It's replacing an existing DVD drive. If it wasn't, I would kind of suspect a system config issue.

As stated before, when trying to flash the firmware it's saying it's got the wrong nonsupported firmware on it which can't be changed. I'm pretty confident that is the issue.

In winxp you still have to check your dma settings! Sometimes the drive may slip into pio mode. Check the ide controllers in device manager. Although your problem seems to be something caused by something else.
Get a RMA from play if its still got problems, you can claim your postage back too!

RedOnRed

Hmmm, i'll reconnect it and try your theories.

I'll be seriously surprised if it works. There's a (virtual) drink in it for you guys if it does!

RedOnRed

Unfortunately your suggestions haven't worked. Thanks all the same though. Much appreciated.

I think the firmware thingey is the issue here. Either way it appears to be DOA.

RedOnRed

Just went out and got an LG drive from PC World which has worked first time flawlessly.

It looks and feels far better quality then the Pioneer.

uncle_buck_3

Sony BLACK DWG120AB2 Internal Dual Layer Multiformat DVD-RW Drive

8x DVD+R DL
4x DVD-R DL
16x DVD+/-R
8x DVD+RW
6x DVD-RW
5x DVD-RAM
16x DVD-ROM
48x CD-R
24x CD-RW
48x CD-ROM

A very good drive for the price & it does DVD-RAM !

http://www.lowestonweb.com/Products/DisplayInfoMain.asp?e=1641CADA-7B46-4408-8647-329E97B2DBDB

dc

If you are looking to include DVD-RAM facilities........Beware the Pioneer 110D reads but will NOT write to DVD-Ram, whereas the 110 wil do both, this has been part of a long mis-selling "Bargain " grabbit thread, here not long ago.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=133904&highlight=play.com

NEC or LG for me,;)