Gigabyte GO-W0804A DVD unrecognised by WinXP

[MTOW]

I have a Gigabyte GO-W0804A DVD read/writer on my computer. It worked fine for some time, but a few months ago, it stopped being recognised on startup and showed up on Device Manager as gibberish (GMGEBjTE GO-W0[00tAd d d d). A visiting computer guru found a driver somewhere, but only after considerable searching, and got it up and running again. Then, a few days ago, I had a problem which ended up requiring a clean install, and I’ve lost and can’t locate the driver the guru found and I’m back to Square One. (He’s currently overseas and unreachable.)

I’ve tried uninstalling, disabling and looking for a driver on the Web (Gigabyte’s site was no help at all). Most sites say that that model DVD is fantastic and doesn’t require a driver with WinXP (I’m running XP Pro SP2 with all updates).

Is there anyone out there who can suggest a fix short of buying a new DVD writer?

[spannersatcx]

It could be a firmware problem, unfortunately the gigabyte website doesn't have any listed, but have a look here (http://codeguys.rpc1.org/dvdrw_overview.html) , be aware that firmware flashing can cause harm to the device if not done properly. Failing that send it back, as reading reviews on it, it may be the drive that's knackered.

[MTOW]

I gave up trying to make the Gigabyte DVD work and lashed out and bought a new DVD writer, an ASUS DRW-1608P. No drivers come with the hardware, as the documentation says that Win all versions will find the required drivers.

Put it in, Windows tells me new hardware found... and, just like the Gigabyte DVD writer, WinXP finds a 'CD ROM' with a garbled name, (in this case, A U D W)1208P ), installs it, but it will not read from it. When I put a Cd into the drive, it spins up, lights up, but says it cannot read from the drive as it is corrupted.

So, since two totally different DVD writers have behaved in pretty much the same way, it would seem a safe bet that I have something amiss in my setup, either hardware or software.

I also run a CD rom as slave on the same cable and it works fine. I have tried removing it, so that the DVD is the only device on the cable, to no effect, and have tried switching the jumper on the DVD writer from Master to Cable Select. Same result in all cases.

Does anyone have any ideas on which way I should go with this? I'm running WinXP Pro on an ASUS P4P 800E motherboard, AVG antivirus and Zone Alarm Pro. (Could either of those two programs be the the problem?)

[spannersatcx]

Try swopping the cables around see if that helps, make sure the DVD is master on it's own no other drives connected. Try swopping it onto the other ide interface.

[MTOW]

Thanks for that suggestion, spannersatcx. Problem solved - it was a dodgy cable.