CD-Rom Blues

Well, I just installed a second hard drive onto my 4 or 5 year old system, and, feeling rather savvy and decided to mess around with my CD drives. (I had a regular one, and a CD-RW) The CD-RW hadn't been working for some time, so I 'relieved' an older comp lying around of its CD-RW. Having dealt with jumpers on the hard drive, I knew enough to make sure one the proper pins are set to master and slave, and that the ribbon is connected accordingly.

My problem is this. I can play a CD anywhere from 30-seconds to a minute. Then, poof. My drive stops working, and disappears from the Device Manager and My Computer. Until I restart it. As a side note, there are now 3 cd drives listed in my Device Manager. I've tried downloading the drivers, uninstalling the drives (both physically and software...ly), and reinstalling the new drivers manually (with no internet connection, someone told me it prevents 'auto-installing' of old drivers.)

For one, I can't get the drivers to work properly. I go into the update drivers menu via Device Manager and browse to the correct folder, but they doesn't show up. I'm fresh out of ideas, and becoming rather frustrated. Any help would be much appreciated.

My CD-Drives are listed in the Device Manager as follows:

CyberDrv CW088D CD-R/RW
SG1910T WGK613D SCSI CdRom Device <-------This is the 'phantom' drive
SONY CD-ROM CDU76E-S

Could this be one of those times where both drives want to be Master?

 

The 'phantom' drive sounds like it may be a virtual drive. Have you recently (or ever) used any virtual drive software? And as to the drive only working for 30s-1m.... have you tried to burn a large file that would take over a minute to burn? This would tell you if the drive has a physical problem, or if it is a software issue. Yes, you might have to waste a blank CD or two in the process. I think the drive may be no good. You could try using a different data cable and/or using a different power connector from your PSU. One of these reasons may be why the previous CDRW stopped working.

 

Ah yes, I've been using Daemon Tools for a long time, maybe I just never noticed that it shows up in the Device Manager But I was sure it just showed up today...:confused

As for the burning, no I haven't tried that, so I'll give that a go and get back to you. I'm hoping that both my drives aren't fried, that would be less than ideal. And I'll also try using different power connectors. Thanks so much for the swift reply

 

Alright, I delved into the problem a bit further. My CD/RW is functioning just fine, both as a burner and a cd player. The problem appears to be with the Master CD Drive. It still cuts out after about a half minute of playing, and BOTH drives still disappear from My Computer when it does this. (Which I assume is because its the Master, so it affects both?) As for swapping power, I have no other available cords. All four of the other ones coming out of my power supply are in use. I'd have to go out and have to buy a power supply just for this. Does anyone have any other ideas?