New Pioneer DVR-109 Installed; "Drive Not Found" E

[Laurelton]

I replaced my Phillips DVD burner with a new Pioneer DVR-109 (pulled the former out and plugged the latter in - same bay) . I get this error on bootup: "Drive 5 Not Found: Parallel ATA, PATA-1 (PRI IDE slave)".

I set the jumper on the Pioneer to "Cable Select" (as Dell's manual instructed).

In setup, I have both this drive and the primary DVD reader set to ON. The primary drive is correctly identified but the description for Drive 2 (the Pioneer) says "unknown".

When I exit setup and eventually get to WinXP (SP2), both drives are correctly listed in Device Manager and "working properly). I can also put a DVD in the Pioneer drive and it will read correctly (haven't tried burning yet).

Under the "advanced" tab of Device Manager, I changed the 'transfer mode' to "DMA if available" but the 'current transfer mode' still says "PIO mode".

Oh... I also just flashed it to the latest firmware - 1.40.

Any ideas what's wrong and how I can get rid of the error at bootup? And how I can get DMA working on the burner?

Many thanks for any help or advice!

[Bucky_Katt]

Did you uninstall the old drive first? It looks like windows might be looking for the old hardware. Use device manager to uninstall the old drive first.

[Bodyslide]

Make sure the Jumper settings on the drive you pulled out is the same as the Pioneer you put in. IF the Phillips was the slave make the Pioneer the slave as well.

[Laurelton]

I just tried uninstalling the drive and letting Windows reinstall; didn't make a difference. I still get the error on bootup (this is BEFORE Windows starts). And Windows apparently re-detected the Pioneer since it was again correctly listed in Device Manager. Once I get to Windows, the drive seems to be OK (except for the DMA option) but when the machine boots, it doesn't recognize the drive for some reason, stops the boot process and instructs me to either go into Setup, or Exit.

I set the jumper to "Cable Select", as Dell instructed, and as the Phillips was setup.

Not sure what else to do.

[SCDVD]

Cable select can somtimes act strangely with some drives. First, make sure that you are using 80-wire cables. The older 40-wire cables don't work well on newer, faster drives. Second, if you have two drives on the IDE channel, set the first one to master and the second one to slave. This safe and sure. Cable select can be problamatic. Lastly, make sure that your drives are set to DMA not PIO. You can verify this by going to Control Panel - System - Hardware - Device Manager. select the IDE controller and then right click on the IDE channel that your drive is on and click on properties and then click on advanced settings. This will shown if the drives are set for DMA.

[Laurelton]

I disabled "Drive 5" in the BIOS and that fixed the boot-up problem. The DMA problem persists.

However, I really don't understand what I just did!

The old setup: 1 IDE cable connected to 2 drives (DVD reader, Phillips DVD writer), both units on "cable select", Drive 4 & Drive 5 "on" in the BIOS.

New setup: same cable to 2 drives (but the Pioneer replacing the Phillips), both again on "cable select" but this time Drive 4 is on but Drive 5 is off.

Is there a better way of doing this?

And how to I begin to get the DMA setting right?

I though this would be a simple switch!!

[Laurelton]

Cable select can somtimes act strangely with some drives. First, make sure that you are using 80-wire cables. The older 40-wire cables don't work well on newer, faster drives. Second, if you have two drives on the IDE channel, set the first one to master and the second one to slave. This safe and sure. Cable select can be problamatic. Lastly, make sure that your drives are set to DMA not PIO. You can verify this by going to Control Panel - System - Hardware - Device Manager. select the IDE controller and then right click on the IDE channel that your drive is on and click on properties and then click on advanced settings. This will shown if the drives are set for DMA.

The machine is about 3-months-old Dell... not sure I know how to tell an 80-wire from a 40-wire.

The end of the IDE cable goes to the DVD reader; the writer is attached to the connector in the middle of the cable. Does that determine what's a 'master' and what's a 'slave'?

I did make sure that both drives were set to "DMA if available". Unfortunately, the writer has the 'current transfer mode' set to PIO. The reader has "Ultra DMA Mode 2" listed.

Thank you for the time and help!

[SCDVD]

The drive on the end should be set to master and the other drive set to slave. If your system is only only 3 months old, it probably has 80-wire cables. The 80-wire cable has smaller wires than the old style cable did. If you saw the two side by side the difference would be easy to see. You can count the wires in the cable to be sure. You don't have to be exact. If it's not 40-wire cable, it's 80-wire. There is nothing in between. But you are probably safe to assume that a new system uses 80-wire cables.

[Laurelton]

Well, I verified that there's an 80-wire cable in there... and I switched the jumpers on both units so that the writer is the 'slave' and the reader is the 'master'. Rebooted. Same thing. PIO mode on the writer.

Any other thoughts or recommendations would be great, and appreciated!

[tomwil]

I would swap the drives ... place the Pioneer burner at the end of the cable, and either keep as cable select(CS), or try setting it as master.

I once added a DVD burner as a slave to a CD burner, and it would not work ... apparently the IDE electronics on the CD burner could not properly control the DVD burner. When I swapped the drives, everything worked perfectly.

[Richard_G]

In the early days of CD writers, it was recommended that they were always the Master and never the Slave. In fact, some of the early Mitsumi CD writers, simply wouldn't work if they were the Slave. I've always stuck with this and never had a problem. Always put a CD or DVD writer as Master on the end connection on the IDE cable and any other (lower spec) drive as Slave on the middle connector.

Ignore what Dell say, my experience with machines we had (note past tense) at work and a laptop that my partner bought is that Dell haven't a clue how to set a machine up properly.

[Laurelton]

First... thanks for all your advice and patience! This kind of stuff drives me crazy... when a 5 minute job turns into 5 hours or 5 days!

OK. I swapped the drives, placing the new Pioneer DVR109 at the end of the IDE cable and the DVD ROM in the middle. I made the Pioneer the Master and the other the Slave. Rebooted. The Pioneer now shows as "Device 0" on the Primary IDE channel and - TA-DA - now has the current mode as "Ultra DMA Mode 4". Unfortunately, the DVD-ROM now shows as PIO mode, instead of "Ultra DMA Mode 2" before. <sigh>

I'm going to see if there are any BIOS updates for the machine and, if so, try that. Otherwise, if I can't make the device on the middle connector work in DMA mode, should I leave it this way? I used the DVD-ROM mostly for ripping music and little else. I use the writer to create CDs and DVDs, maybe 3-4 times as frequently as the former.

I'm still confused re: that first change I made when I turned "Device 5" off in the BIOS to get rid of the bootup error message... why would that have worked before when the Phillips burner was installed? I don't get it.

Any other suggestions would be gratefully welcomed!

[SCDVD]

Sometimes the DMA/PIO mode sticks and won't change when you try to select DMA. You can delete the secondary channel IDE controller from Control Panel. Then reboot your system and the system will reinstall the controller when you reboot. This often fixes this problem.

[Laurelton]

Well, it seems to be working now. For those Dell owners (or others) who might stumble across this thread, here's a summary and what I did:

The original setup:
--------------------
Primary IDE --
Device 0: DVD-ROM drive (jumper= cable select, end of IDE cable)
Device 1: Phillips 8631 DVD Writer (jumper = cable select, middle IDE connector)

BIOS: Drive 4 = DVD-Rom PATA-1 (PRI IDE Master); Drive 5 = Phillips (PRI IDE Slave)

Both devices were "Ultra DMA Mode 2"

1st Attempt:
-------------

Swap Phillips with Pioneer DVR-109; Pioneer jumper set to Cable Select

- Error message @ bootup: "Drive 5 not found"
- Both devices listed correctly in WinXP (SP2)
- Device 1 (the Pioneer) listed as PIO Mode

2nd Attempt:
--------------

- Disable Drive 5 in BIOS
- Bootup error message disappears
- Everything else the same

3rd Attempt:
-------------

- Set DVD-ROM as "Master" and Pioneer as "Slave"
- No change

4th Attempt (+ others):
-------------

- Disable Primary IDE in Device Manager; allow Win to reinstall
- No change

5th attempt:
-------------

- Swap drives; set Pioneer at end of cable; DVD-ROM in the middle
- Set Pioneer as Master; other as Slave
- Writer now listed as "Ultra DMA Mode 4"; other as PIO <sigh>

Lastly:
------

- Go into BIOS and re-enable Device 5
- Both devices correctly listed as DMA in Windows!!

I have no idea why this worked! Apparently, swapping the drive locations along with leaving the Device 5 setting ON is the correct combination. With the Phillips, the device locations were reversed.

If anyone can explain why this is so, I'd be interested... otherwise... thanks for the help and advice! Nothing like a quick swap!

[Bodyslide]

Glad you got it up and running. My dell has issues like that sometimes.

[kosekjm]

Hi there,

Yep, I have the same issue on my Dell 8400. It appears that the 8400 doesn't like having a faster device in the middle of the chain. In my situation, I have a Pioneer 108 (UDMA4) and a DVD rom (UDMA2). If the pioneer is on the seconday port, then my machine does the exact same thing. Only when I move the faster drive to the primary position, will Bios see it and then the OS will list the DMA correctly. Setting them from CS to Pri/Sec make no difference either. It just appears to be one of those "Undocumented features" that sometimes creep into program code.

Now as to why this is this way, I don't know. My older Dell 4550 would allow me to have the faster drive on the secondary position and the slower drive on the primary. I have sent a request to Dell support with the customary answer of upgrade to latest bios ...

Sorry that I hadn't seen this post earlier, might have been able to help you save some time (I know that I went through the same thing for the first two days with this new machine)

[Laurelton]

Thanks kosekjm for the confirmation... at least I feel that I'm not losing my marbles!

One of my intermediate steps was going to be to update my BIOS (from A03 to A05) but, for some perversely serendiptous reason, all the BIOS updates were missing from the support site today. If I ever get bored, I may flash the BIOS and re-swap the drives (or maybe NOT!).

I guess the Phillips device, which was in spot #2, was a mediocre enough device as to not upset the balance. Undoubtedly, this was probably why Dell continues to ship their machines with this problematic unit.

Thanks!

[Ma_Jie]

The Philips is likely an 8601, 8631, or 1640 -- all which can be crossflashed w/ a BenQ, which is an AWESOME drive m(no matter what LS says).

The burner is perfectly fine. When I first installed my BenQ OEM alongside the Philips831 I had an issue b/c the Philips was in cable select but one change to Master, and it was fine on my Dell 4700.

- Jie

[Laurelton]

Yes, it's an 8631. I plan to keep in and put it in service into an older Dell 8300. Are you saying that I should flash it with non-Phillips firmware? If so, can you let me know how to get it?

My 1st 8631 died and was just replaced (free) by Dell. By the looks of the Dell support forum, many people have had problems with a batch of these, hopefully just an isolated instance.

[Ma_Jie]

Laurelton: Yes, it can be done.

STEP #1

Go here: http://dvdpro.club.st/firmware/BENQ_FW.htm

DL the WinDWFlasher and CVT file of your choice (EG: B7P9 or B7T9)

Load CVT into flasher and reboot.

STEP #2

Go here: Official BenQ FW

DL Official FW of your choice (B7P9, B7T9, B7U9) and flash your drive.

Note: if you want to use MCSE on your drive, to boost the pressed DL ripping speed to 16x MAX, do this:

Load official BenQ FW (after doing Step #1!!!) into MCSE program (http://home.arcor.de/ala42/MCSE)

Then CHECK OFF "increase read speed" checkbox and hit Save. Then flash as normal and reboot.

NOTE: Always flash with your drive EMPTY.

Cheers,

Jie

[Laurelton]

Been away & just getting back to this.

Thanks for the response!