HP CD Writer Plus 7200 & newer software don't mix

[gary munch]

The CD writer is on a Pentium 1, 0.16GH
This writer has been working fine, using Easy CD Creator 3. and DirectCD 2.0
I was trying to go beyond 650MB, so got the latest software from Roxio, ver 5.1 and my day is shot. PC hangs everywhere I turn, have to kill the tasks manually, CD wont eject without reboot, you name it. Well I backed out everything I could find - uninstall, folders, adaptec references in the registry. Reloaded original software, and it's "better". But- I cant read a known good DirectCD with the reinstalled S/W. It sometimes it hangs in the drive, wont eject. The best it will do is show the CD contents as one audio track (its all data). It seems I can format a blank, it looks like the Easy Creator will work (havnt tried today- its very late... zzzz)

There is some driver, registry entry, or something that got updated which is not compatible with my system / CD Writer. Sometimes loading SW will not overwrite newer versions, so I have an incompatability now.

Does anyone know what drivers are causing this? Must I reformat the hard drive? (looking for all the original CDs...!)

Another point of interest - tried writing with the latest Windows Media Player.. it wont write - the software executes and noting happens - like it just executes to the bit bucket. Also, with REAL One Plaer, my system had fits of hanging up. I think the old hardware on this machine cant handle new software. Where am I wrong? What say you?

[#2]

This may or may not help.

Turn off Ultra-DMA in bios.

Turn off the "Enable Digital Audio.....". Via Device manager, select cd from list, click properties, choose the page where you also set the volume...and then uncheck the box for the setting of play digital audio....

In device manager go to the device "hard disk controllers"....find the one that the CD drive is attached to. Choose properties...if there is an option there for using DMA turn it off and set it to "PIO" or whatever.

When you restart your computer your drive should work significantly better.

I had found that if I went to the properties page and clicked "cancel" on the page the whole OS would seem to just cease responding for a long time.

After turning off the DMA setting I found the system responded immediately when I clicked the "cancel" button on the properties page of device manager for the CD-ROM properties.

I tried to go through HP tech support but their messed up way of dealing with technical support is incompetent.

I worked tech support for years and I tell you their tech support is the worst I have ever seen. In fact, they are simply entering in keywords into a database and coming up with some dumb canned answers and sending those off to you in e-mail replies. Then when you insist they get someone else to assist you they say they have done their job and the problem is now yours and to take it to a service center.

They are totally full of it and I think people should be outraged at how bad their techncial support is.



I spent a great deal of time working on this problem and I would say for certain that HP was trying to pull a fast one in getting rid of these drives.

I will also say that I will never buy another HP product in my life, period.

[gary munch]

Thanks for the reply - I'll try that. It may cure tha "hang" problem, I don't know about the burning problem.

The burner seems better now, it made coasters out of all my CDRW's that were previously formatted for DirectCD.

I dont have much hope for writing with WinMediaPlayer or RealOne.

I see what you mean about their canned email response. I believe that is now called a "Knowledge Data Base". Whoever invented THAT should be shot!

Cheers!

[alan_37]

Just thought I must post and say Thanks Barney. This unit has a lot of bad press and I was ready to throw mine away seeing it was free but after unchecking the DMA flag in the cd drive's properties it works ok... prior to that it just hung the pc. It is a bit slow for these days though! I used Media Jukebox which is a free download, getting courage to use HP-supplied software...

[alan_37]

Since my last post I found I was subject to the usual errors when trying to write non-music in a track-at-once session, specifically >>
T7303: TrackWriter error - Undefined or invalid parameter
T7303: TrackWriter error - Undefined or invalid parameter
T7118: TrackWriter error - Command retry failed
D0100: I/O error (05/64/09) - sense code 0x64
D0100: I/O error (05/2C/00) - Command error - commands not issued in sequence
<<
Fixed it all tonight though and the slow old thing is humming like a peach and writing like Shakespeare.

What you must all do is:

1. disable DMA for the HP cdwriter to make it start working at all.
2. I then upgraded my aspi but I think this was a red herring.
3. go to Tesco and buy a laser lens cleaner for ??3.99, go home, use it.... I blew the innards out with a can of compressed air first..
4. go to http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bay/6893/ and download the firmware version 3.09 for the Philips CDD3610, for this is what you have, the 7200 is just a rebadge.
5. install it obviously then sit back and burn!!! All your CD software will still work the same.

I've gone from errors all the time to none at all. The buffer underrun is an error which is reported in error in my opinion, if you get my drift, and it's caused by the firmware not being very good.

I don't know what did the trick, cleaning it or flashing it but I suspect the flash and I wonder why HP can't offer the same service. Grab this flash while it's still there.

[Nicholas_12]

hi alan,

seems like u got yourself a prefectly working drive. I have a question, u mentioned the philips firmware for the cdd3610, is that for the internal IDE(7200i) or external parallel(7200e) version, or it works for both? I have the external version and have problems burning 700M cdrs. I am currently on firmware version 3.01 by HP. If the philips firmware(version 3.09) solves the problem, then I am all ready to upgrade mine). Thanks.

[alan_37]

Hi Nicholas
As I understand it the internal and external versions are identical, with a chip in the external version's case to convert it to a parallel interface. I would definitely upgrade your firmware. I haven't had any errors since my last post and I've written music, copied disks, and added backup files incrementally. I remember reading somewhere that you can take the external drive out of its case and fit it internally, this would make it faster, and less prone to errors as you'd be decreasing the number of error sources. Be careful when flashing and follow the directions which are probably supplied as a readme file in the downloaded zip. Let us know how you go on.

[alan_37]

anyway here it is as an attachment straight off my hard drive, and here are the readme notes...

Release Notes:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FlashTool V2.00e, 6 May 99.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The FlashTool will updade the firmware of the next drives:

+------------------------------------------+----------+----------------------+
| Drive Type | Vendor | Product ID |
+------------------------------------------+----------+----------------------+
| CDD3600: SCSI Version | PHILIPS | CDD3600 CD-R/RW |
| | SCSI-CD | ReWritable-2x2x6 |
| | Traxdata | CDRW2260 PRO |
+------------------------------------------+----------+----------------------+
| CDD3610: IDE + External Parallel Version | PHILIPS | CDD3610 CD-R/RW |
| | IDE-CD | ReWritable-2x2x6 |
| | Traxdata | CDRW2260 + |
| | HP | CD-Writer+ 7100 |
| | HP | CD-Writer+ 7200 |
+------------------------------------------+----------+----------------------+
| CDD3801: IDE Version | PHILIPS | CDD3801 CD-R/RW |
| | PHILIPS | PCA382RW IDE |
| | Memorex | CDRW-2224 |
| | IDE-CD | R/RW 2x2x24 |
| | WAITEC | WT2422EI |
| | Traxdata | CDRW2224 PLUS |
+------------------------------------------+----------+----------------------+
| CDD4201: IDE Version | IDE-CD | R/RW 4x4x24 |
| | IOMEGA | ZIPCD 650 |
+------------------------------------------+----------+----------------------+
| CDD4401: IDE Version | IDE-CD | R/RW 4x4x32 |
+------------------------------------------+----------+----------------------+
| CDD4801: IDE Version | IDE-CD | R/RW 8x4x32 |
+------------------------------------------+----------+----------------------+

[Glaucio Sansevero]

I was having exactly the same problems you guys describe. I have a 7200i unit on a XP Pro machine. I tried to update my firmware version using the windows utility and had no success at all. First, I got a message saying I had to turn Ultra-DMA to be able to use the software. I did that in the BIOS and the next problem was that the sw could not find an upgradable CD burner. I then tried the DOS version. It also did not work the first time I tried. The only way I found to make it work was to edit the ataflash.ini file. You have to make the string in the [RECORDERS] section match the string detected by the program to the corresponding CD drive. After that, my CD is working nice and smooth.