Optical Drive - can't set to DMA

This topic is being spit off from its prior location, since my content was hijacking the OP's topic.
Sorry about that 8210guy.

I presently have an HP9010nx laptop which will accept and boot from XP installation CD, and even MS Office installation CD, but will not recognize any other CD with simply saved data. I've performed the high and low filter registry work, and gdgone utility… still no go with data disks. My drawer stays shut and opens correctly but the optical drive just won't recognize the media.

Your situation and mine, are just plain… annoying!

Hi Alan,

Good to see that you've narrowed the problem to Parentitis. Lot of that going around.

Thanks for your observations about my optical drive.

files were burnt using a different burner, often without finalising the disk, or the laser is in need of cleaning, quick question, what type of disks are showing\not showing ?
I ask because if it's only Cd's, or only DVDs not showing, it means it is the lens for that type, DVD burners have 2 lenses, hence 1 can play up while the other is fine, could this be the case here ?

I had already taken those items into consideration with no beneficial result.

Workable Disks:
XP Home installation CD - No problem - recognizes, runs and installs
XP SP2 MS update CD - No Problem - recognizes, runs and installs
MS Office 2003 CD - No Problem - recognizes, runs and installs

Non-recognized Disks: Doesn't even identify that a disk has been inserted.
"Any" locally burned data disk, several brands
"Any" non-MS third-party application installation CD
"Any" retail DVD (movies) (I don't have any locally burnt DVDs to try)
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The optical disk is CD/RW/DVD labeled in Device Manager: HL-DT-ST RW/DVD Gcc-4241N
Note: HP offers a "firmware update" for GCC-4243N, but not for 4241N and I've read a few posts around the internet from people who regretted installing the firmware update even when they had the 4243N device. So I'm not likely to go there.

this seems to be a DMA vs PIO problem

** The above listed conditions occur when the drive is set to "DMA if available"
** When set to PIO, the Optical drive will recognize and read "anything" that I throw at it, including DVD movies, home burnt data CD's,

Hard Drive is on Primary IDE
Optical Drive is on Secondary IDE

This HP 9010nx has 4 channels of DMA
They are already assigned
Channel 0 - ECP Printer Port (LPT1)
Channel 1 - Standard Floppy disk controller
Channel 2 - Direct memory access Controller
Channel 3 - ALi Fast Infrared Controller


The Optical Drive recognizes and reads any/all disks when set to PIO
I haven't installed any writing software yet.
I have Roxio 5.0 with the necessary XP upgrades, but haven't installed yet.
That's generally one of the last things I install when configuring a machine.
Especially with Optical Disk problems, I'd rather be able to not worry about Roxio, until it's working stabile.

Set at PIO, it is definitely "slow", as noticed when running a DVD movie… stutters, lags, sound out of sync with picture, buffering pauses, etc.
Granted this is a "low resource" machine, but it is not strictly a matter of poor graphics adapter and limited RAM, since I can watch and listen to YouTube all day long with any variety of content. Presently listening to Little Big Town "Give me a little more you" which is a music video with rich on-location background and lively country lyrics… never a break, stutter, nor pause for buffering and remarkably in sync between video and audio.

So my question:

Is there a way to "assign" DMA chanel to the Optical Drive.

I "removed ALi Fast Infrared Controller via Device manager, thinking that it would release a DMA channel that I could use for Optical Disk.

It did release its DMA Channel, and now only 3 DMA Channels appear as assigned in System Information - Hardware - DMA

But I don't know how to get Optical Drive assigned.

BIOS Is Phoenix Technologies Ltd. PhoenixBIOS 4.0 Realease 6.0 PTLDT - 6040000 2004 0603
I did run the WinFlash BIOS upgrade recommended by HP, but no help. Problem same before and after.

Has no options for plug n play and no UDMA options
It is about as "bare-bones" of a BIOS/CMOS as I've ever seen… very limited options.
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OK… I do know the "ordinary" way to try to set DMA…. but it doesn't work.
Device Manager - IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers

When set to DMA if available, the optical drive does not recognize cd or dvd, except for MS installation medias

This is a "minor issue" for me with this laptop.
It will mostly be used for browsing and email, with a bit of Office document and spreadsheet work.

But I would like help to acquire DMA for the optical drive if possible.

Thanks for any help.

Doug

Situation partially solved. In another venue, I applied the usual "upper and lower filters" registry tweak, and uninstalled both IDE Controllers and the optical drive from Device manager, allowing them to be found and reinstalled by Windows… To no avail. Then a trusted tech acquaintance provided a .vbs scrip to force reset of DMA for all controllers. This seems to have worked. I remain with difficulty reading various home-burnt CD's but any commercially available CD/DVD now is recognized. Thanks for reading.

NP's Doug I was done anyway, out of my depth on this in the way of knowing\guiding, but I've had a look about and saw a comment about updating the drivers, also the jmicron driver, the suggestion is disable it in the bios, or if it's needed uninstall it (check add\remove if it was installed via windows update) and reboot, then allow windows to install generic drivers, see if this helps.