Brand new Asus DVDRW not recognized

chouf · 03 Jan 2012

Hi,

I have a strange problem with my Asus P8P67 MB (rev B3) this is already the third ODD I'm testing and I keep getting the same problem; as soon as I want to access the DVD drive in W7 x64, Windows Explorer freezes. I'm also not able to read any kind disc (and I've tried many - which btw work fine on my laptop).

I've tried switching SATA cables and SATA ports, but no luck.
I had a Samsung drive which worked fine for a while (since I've installed Windows from it as well as some games from DVD). I thought the drive was defective and I bought a brand new Asus DRW-24B3LT (ASUSTeK Computer Inc. - Optical Storage- ASUS DRW-24B3LT), but as soon as I plugged it in, the same problem occurred and I've not been able to do anything with it.

Somehow I believe that the problem is due to my SATA config.
At the moment I have the following setup :

- 1 SDD connect to one gray Intel 6gb/s port
- 2 standard 1Tb HDD in RAID 1 (connected to 2 blue Intel 3gb/s ports)
- 1 USB 3.0 extension (at the back of the case) (connected to 1 blue Intel 3gb/s ports)
- 1 DVDRW (the Asus now) connected to 1 blue Intel 3gb/s ports

In the BIOS the SATA mode is set in RAID mode, and I have the impression that this may cause some issue with the ODD? Shouldn't it be in AHCI mode ? Does it make a difference? Problem is thazt according to the documentation, the only way to make a RAID is to set the entire controller in RAID mode. Don't know if this can play somehow in my problem.

I've already use the Microsoft DVD & BlueRay troubleshooter without success.
My DVDRW appears in Explorer, but is labelled as CDROM. Trying to access it from Explorer or even via command prompt freezes the machine.

Any idea is welcome

Thanks and happy new year

Qdos · 03 Jan 2012

Does your board have a second array of SATA headers (as mine does) which run from a second controller, so you can have raid on one set and standard on the other?

If not then does it have a legacy IDE header for ODD/HDD's?

chouf · 03 Jan 2012

Qdos said:

Does your board have a second array of SATA headers (as mine does) which run from a second controller, so you can have raid on one set and standard on the other?

If not then does it have a legacy IDE header for ODD/HDD's?

Hi and thanks for your super fast answer.
First of all I do not know if my problems with the ODD are related to the way my SATA devices are setup or not, this is a wild guess from my side.

But to answer your question, yes, I have two other spare 6Gb/s SATA ports handled by a Marvell controller; these are only for RAID config and do not accept optical drives. I suppose I could always recreate my RAID by using the Marvell controller and set the Intel controller in AHCI mode, should that be the cause of my issue.

Qdos · 03 Jan 2012

It'd be worth a try. After all, it's the third optical drive. Odds are it is the way those SATA headers are working in RAID which is causing the issue.

If you have a plug in RAID/SATA card you could also try it that way.

chouf · 03 Jan 2012

Qdos said:

It'd be worth a try. After all, it's the third optical drive. Odds are it is the way those SATA headers are working in RAID which is causing the issue.

If you have a plug in RAID/SATA card you could also try it that way.

Yeah, I didn't want to go down that route as re-creating the RAID is a bit of a hassle, but as you say, it's worth a try.

Should anything need to be changed/modified in Windows concerning the ODD?

Qdos · 03 Jan 2012

I can't think of any other variables to mess around with on a new ODD unit to be honest.

Firmware and everything else should already be suitable for the OS and more or less the latest.

Good luck :)

chouf · 04 Jan 2012

good and bad news

the good new is that by

- reconnecting the two HDD to the Marvell SATA controller
- removing the CDROM drive from the Device Manager (so the driver is uninstalled as well)
- restarting the PC
- clearing the CMOS
- loading defaults in the BIOS
- switching the Intel SATA controller to AHCI mode

the Asus DVDRW is finally correctly recognized and is fully functional

, I can read stuff without any problem, the files are displayed within seconds (Didn't test the buring yet, but well)

The bad news is that the Marvel SATA controller on my MB "only" offers a 6Gb/s (useless in my case the HDD are at 3Gb/s) and doesn't support RAID (only the Intel one does - and the Marvell doesn't support ATAPI so it's not an option for any ODD drive);

The "workaround" that I've found is to use the Microsoft built-in mirroring feature in disk management. So I've added one of my HDD as a mirror of the other one and the two are now in synch. Nveretheless, I'm never used this mirroring feature and I do not know how good/bad it is compare to the Intel Rapid Storage one.