EPO - DVD Rom can not read CD-RW's - Why?

[Herkulese]

As the title says, I have a 16x EPO - DVD Rom drive that I bought from CompUSA for $30.

UPDATE: This unit was on sale. The regular price was $55.

It seems to work well except that it is suposed to read CD-RW's, but whenever I put one in it just blinks and freezes Windows Explorer.

I know that with older CD-Roms, it is questionable if thay will read CD-RW's, but this drive is brand new. Is this a common problem or is it a bad DVD Rom drive?

 

[DN]

$30..? Sounds like a crap drive in more ways than one..

 

[AndyHui]

Generation I/Type I DVD drives cannot read CDRWs, but these types of drives have not been manufactured for at least 2 years now, and the 16x speed does not lend itself to indicate that it is one of those drives.

$30 for a DVD drive sounds pretty horrid to me though.

 

[Mavrick007]

I would also say that you got a crap drive (best prices don't = best deal if it doesn't work right). Take it back and get another one, or better yet, get your money back and buy a better one.

 

[Herkulese]

Thanks for the advice guys.
This was a $55 dirve at CompUSA, on sale for $30.
I should have mentioned the regular price in my orig post. I did update it there.
I will try another one and if that does not work, I will try to get my money back.

Thanks again,
Herkulese

 

[StormRider]

Now you're making me worried. I have a 10x EPO drive. When I get home I'm gonna test it to see if it can read a CDRW...

EPO used to put up new bioses on their website but for some reason they don't have them there anymore. Sometimes flashing to a new bios improves the drives ability to read disks.

 

[Herkulese]

StormRider,

Please post back with your CD-RW test results.

I am going to have CompUSA switch it out for another of the same drive, and will post back on how it does.

 

[kef7]

I purchased the same drive but have not installed it yet. Will do so this weekend and test cd-rws (unless my p260 comes in).

 

[StormRider]

I just tried my 10x EPO DVD drive and it read my 2x Ricoh and Smart & Friendly CDRWs fine. I don't have any higher speed CDRWs to try unfortunately.

 

[Herkulese]

StormRider,

Thanks for the verification.

 

[Jiggz]

Are you trying to read a CD-RW disc burned and finalized or close out? CD Roms and DVD Roms although compatible with CDR and CDRW can only read disc that are finalized or close out. They cannot read a disc that still has an open session.

 

[Herkulese]

Jiggs,

These sre CD-RW's that have been closed out and are readable on other CD-Rom drives.

 

[Copperpipe]

I recently bought the same 16X EPO drive from ChompUSA but mine was $39 (no rebate) w/regular price $79.

Mine reads CDRW's made from my HP 8X4X32 burner just fine on my ECS K7S5A / 1 ghz Tbird/266 FSB (not overclocked)/256 MB PC133 SDRAM system in Windows (98) Explorer.

Before I bought the drive, I read one favorable review of the EPO 12X drive and figured the 16X might be OK. Heck, for only $39....it works great for me. I've been ripping movie DVD's without a problem.

 

[Herkulese]

CopperPipe

Mine was actually $39 as well and come to thing of it the regulare price was $79.
As you said, the regulare price coupled with the review gave it the green lite for me.

As I said earlier, I am going to take it back and switch if for another one.
May just have gotten a bad one.

 

[Herkulese]

Update:

I took my EPO 16x DVD drive back to CompUSA and exchanged it for another one, with no improvement. This one will not read these CD-RW's either. Well, it did reand one of them, but with the other two it just sits there and blinks.

BTW, the disks are IMATION 4X, and were burned on a TDK 16x VeloCD burner with NERO burning software.

 

[Copperpipe]

Herkulese,

Mine reads RW's fine...I've been reading Imation 4X RW's which were burnt w/ my HP 8X4X32 w/ EZCD creator. It (the EPO drive) works fine in Windows Explorer just like a CDROM drive...little hesitation. Perhaps you might try burning RW's at 4X on your drive, if you haven't done so yet, to see if there is any difference.

I've been thinking of relocating it to another computer which has a Liteon 16X CDRW, but perhaps I should try seeing if this DVD drive can read RW's burnt from it first.

 

[Bovinicus]

Are you absolutely sure the drive is intended to read CDRW media? Usually the box or manual that comes with the drive will list the different forms of media that it is compatible with.

 

[Loricariidae]

It's always been my impression that the EPO 16x are rather inferior - they're always on sale at one place or another (despite already being the lowest priced before the sale). While I'm not a price snob (poor college students can't afford that kind of luxury), it's enough to make me suspicious.

 

[bonkers325]

<< As the title says, I have a 16x EPO - DVD Rom drive that I bought from CompUSA for $30.

UPDATE: This unit was on sale. The regular price was $55.

It seems to work well except that it is suposed to read CD-RW's, but whenever I put one in it just blinks and freezes Windows Explorer.

I know that with older CD-Roms, it is questionable if thay will read CD-RW's, but this drive is brand new. Is this a common problem or is it a bad DVD Rom drive? >>



u might need a new firmware update

 

[Herkulese]

I went to the EPO website and (not surprisingly) there is no firmware to download.

 

[Deanodarlo]

Check you have the cable orientated correctly (for UDMA blue in motherboard, Primary at the end, secondary in the middle).

Check you have the jumper set correctly - cable select for UDMA cables and master(end)/slave(middle) for the 40-pin ones.

It could also be a driver or motherboard issue.

I've had drives not work correctly with certain via drivers and/or motherboards.

For example, my current CDRW never worked well on a KT7A but runs fine on the Epox 8KHA+.

Try the drive on another computer if you can. Also have a go at removing the via IDE drivers by running the 4-in-1 pack and selecting uninstall.

See how it works then.

 

[Deanodarlo]

Woops, forgot to add - get that FSB down to default value. Run with the safest bios settings so you can eliminate o/cing the CPU/PCI as the cause.

 

[Herkulese]

Deanodarlo,

All good scientific suggestions.
I will try them, if for no other reason, to eliminate as many variables as posible.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[Herkulese]

Deanodarlo,

Thanks again for the suggestions. I tried all but one so far as follows:

1) No OC, run at Safe Defaults - NO GO
2) Verify UDMA cable connections - CORRECT
3) Switch DVD and ZIP drive on this UDMA cable from Master/Slave to Cable Select - NO GO
4) Delete VIA driver 4.36 and restart - NO GO
5) Try DVD Drive in other PC - NOT DONE YET

No that we have eliminated all of these variable, it seems that this DVD-Rom drive is just not going to read CD-RW disks, at least on this machine. If everything else works, it is not the end of the world as my TDK Burner will read them if need be.

In light of this fact, I really do need to rent a DVD movie to verify how well it reads DVD's.

 

[Herkulese]

I have noticed that, even though the CD-RW disks that I am using will read on other drive, it does take noticably longer for them to be recognized, even on those drives.

Is this normal for CD-RW disks, or could I have done somethig wrong when I recorded them, or could it be the NERO recording software that makes them flaky?

Just trying to bottom out all possibilities.