WHS keeps ejecting cd/dvd discs

[Malfeas]

My WHS has had this problem for a few months. When I insert a disc into the drive and close it, it will read the disc then eject it. This makes installing software from a disc annoying, I work around this by using another PC to copy the disc to a USB thumbdrive and install from there. But this is rather annoying and I would like to solve the problem.

I assumed it was a hardware problem, so I have changed out disc drives with the drives inserted in the case and out of it (in case of something pressing on the eject button), and have used both PATA and SATA drives. I also changed all cables, changed out the motherboard (had a spare P35), memory, CPU, etc. Basically all of the hardware has been swapped, except the drives, so I doubt it is a hardware issue.

I would like to avoid an OS re-install, so any assistance is appreciated. I guess that some program is sending an eject command to the drive when it reads from the drive. No ejecting behavior when the drive is empty. If I load the drive during startup before the OS finishes booting, it will not eject the drive until I try to access the disc.

Current hardware configuration is:
CPU: e8400, previous CPU was e3300 celeron
MB: Asrock p45-x3 deluxe, previous MB was a Gigabyte P35....something
Ram: 2GB of patriot 1333, cheap ram.
Video: nVidia 9500gt
Hard drives: OS -> 500GB WD green drive
Storage-> 2(seagate 1.5TB), 2(seagate 2.0TB), 2(samsung f3 or f4? 2TB)
SATA adapter: some cheap 4 port adaptor, exhibits same behavior with or without it.

Disc drives available to test , BenQ PATA, Sony PATA, LG SATA. Same ejecting behavior with all drives mounted in or out of the case.

I've scanned for malware, viruses etc with several AV suites. All negative.

 

[buckjrdley]

This is a very strange but interesting issue...

Sounds like some software on your machine is confusing the read function with the eject function...
For kicks, disable the autorun feature (or hold shift after you put a cd/dvd in the drive) and my guess would be that the drive wont eject the media until you attempt to access it.
This would be why the drive doesn't eject if the media is in the drive during bootup (autorun doesn't run in this case).

Try to completely uninstall and reinstall the drivers for the cd/dvd drive and any drivers that control the connections to the drive (SATA connectors/PATA connectors).
The confusion could be at the driver level...

Also, make sure you don't have any software that would attempt to access the drive before the OS does (maybe some kind of media reading software that came with a piece of hardware?).

Else, you may have some sort of corruption that is causing the OS to be confused.
If this is the case, you may be able to access the drive using some third party file browser utility, but you would most likely need to repair the OS or do a full re-installation...

Hopefully this helps out some.