New AD7170S SATA and Vista Home Premium

[oldhand]

New Dell Dimension 9200 (1 week old) Vista Home Premium. 3 Gb Ram 250 Gb Hard drive. New NEC AD7170S SATA DVD RW. Physically fitted no problem. Power lead connected and the drive light comes on and the unit seems to work. Brand new SATA data cable fitted. Drive was detected by Windows and it reported that the drivers were successfully installed. I can write to this drive perfectly using AShampoo 7 and the Windows writer but the drive will not play either CDs or DVDs. Often locks up the PC. SATA 2, this drive, is ON in the BIOS. SATA 0, the hard drive, works fine and so does SATA 1, the DELL original DVD writer. Any suggestions? DELL are less than helpful when it comes to problems. Stock answer seems to be that I should reinstall Vista. Oh REALLY? Me? On a computer that is 1 week old? I think not! Thanks guys and gals. :(

[Taxation]

check that the drives are set to
1 slave
1 master
??
tried other sata ports for the drive??

[oldhand]

Thanks Taxation. I have not yet tried one of the other SATA ports but I will do that today. I have tried different SATA cables, all brand new, and that made no difference. I was not aware that SATA drives could be shown as Master and Slave. They certainly don't appear to have anything like the jumpers that IDE devices have and there was not mention of that in the documentaion that came with the new drive. If they can be set like this, do you know how this is done? I could not see any mention in the BIOS either. Best regards

[Taxation]

i havent yet had a go with a SATA drive, im just going with experience with ye olde IDE drives.
Have you tried updating firmware on it.
Make sure that all sata ports are enabled
re install would fix most problems, but is a pain in the a$$

[oldhand]

I solved it. And it was so simple I could kick myself. Also, so simple that I cannot understand why DELL could not tell me what it was. My 1st hard drive is on SATA 0 and the original DVD writer is on SATA 1. This is how the DELL PC was delivered to me. I connected my new DVD writer to SATA 2. It seems that SATA 2 and 3 are for hard drives and SATA 4 and 5 are for DVDs starting with SATA 4. So, I unplugged the drive from SATA 2 and put it into SATA 4 and it all works. Of course, I had to turn SATA 2 OFF and SATA 4 ON in the BIOS but that is straightforward.
Annoyingly, all this is included in the Owners Documentation that is on the hard drive. I just did not realise it.
I hope this helps anyone else with the same problem who, like me, has not read the manual. Oh, and a black mark to DELL for not pointing it out to me after I clearly told them what I had done by using SATA 2.

[Nox]

I was not aware that SATA drives could be shown as Master and Slave.

Thats because they can't - Master/Slave thing is IDE only. tsk tax :D

I knew about SATA drives sometimes being a bit fussy as to which controller they are plugged into - that may be the case with yours, but those were really the older drives - thought the new ones were pretty good.

Don't have a DVD drive in my machine these days, barely use it.

Nox

[oldhand]

Thanks Nox, as I say it's all sorted now thank goodness. And now time to move to the next problem. Why doesn't Roxio Creator 9, that came pre-installed on this machine, work?
And why does DELL think the only cure on this machine, which is 2 weeks old, would be for ME to reinstall Vista?
After-sales service? Really? I have yet to see it.

[Taxation]

I was not aware that SATA drives could be shown as Master and Slave.

Thats because they can't - Master/Slave thing is IDE only. tsk tax :D

Nox


i havent yet had a go with a SATA drive, im just going with experience with ye olde IDE drives

read and ye will discover

[SilentBob]

rather than make another thread i thought i ll bump this one.

Does the AD7170S require a CD-rom audio cable to go into the motherboard? Have not played around with a SATA optical drive before.

my OEM drive came in the post this morning with no cables so thought I d check, i can pick one up on the way home from work if needed.

I have a SATA power and data cables, any other cables needed? NEC's website is useless I cannot even find a user guide.

thanks

[Taxation]

CD drives only need to be connected to the motherboard by either a S/ata or and IDE cable, no audio cables need to be connected

[SilentBob]

CD drives only need to be connected to the motherboard by either a S/ata or and IDE cable, no audio cables need to be connected

Cheers

Would i need any cables to connect the SATA optical drive to the Creative X- FI sound card?


EDIT: one more question

[Taxation]

nope, all that info runs through the motherboard to the sound card

[SilentBob]

thanks again!