It's a Pioneer A08. Internal.

Hmmm... is the drive correctly jumpered for IDE master or slave? Are the other IDE devices correctly set? Is it set to cable select but the cable is 40 wire and not 80 wire (which is needed for cable select to work) or is another device set for cable select while others are set for master or slave? Just a guess.

~jr

All of the above have been checked. I'm gonna pull it and put in a Firewire enclosure, see if that helps (if no one has any other quick solutions)
I'm tired of messing with the Disk Manager and everything related to it.

Try a different 80 pin IDE cable for starters. Also, if you have removed Roxio software then Microsoft article 314060 may pertain to you. There is a registry fix. Also this Microsoft article entitled "DMA Mode for ATA/ATAPI Devices in Windows XP"


John

Ran into the same problem once....re-installed the burning software (Nero) and everything was fine.

Good luck.

I've:
Changed IDE cable
Reset jumpers from Secondary master to Cable Select
Uninstalled DVDA/Nero
Reinstalled DVDA/Nero
........
Put it in an ADS enclosure over Firewire, works great. Pulled it back out of the enclosure, reset the jumpers, still won't work. There must be something wrong with the way the drive operates in Secondary Master or Cable Select mode, because it works fine in the ADS enclosure via firewire. DVD A and Nero both see it, both can write to it.

What's the O/S? I had a machine on Win2K that had a similar problem (not the same) about 4 years ago. Windows stopped seeing both my CD drives. It had something to do with a certain version of WIndows Media player that conflicted with Roxio, and required a registry hack. Roxio later put a patch on their site.

Windows XP Pro...I don't have Roxio on this machine, just DVD A and Nero Ultra 6

What is the drive (Mfr/Model)? Do you have the latest available drivers?

It's a Pioneer A08, and I've installed the latest drivers, yes.
Thanks for the help so far, too.
If the drivers weren't good, it shouldn't work via Firewire either, so far as I know.

Are you using + or - media? I've read where DVDA sometimes only sees that drive when there's a + in it. I'd also try DVDA by itself without Nero first.

I've tried both - and +R, no diff. Tried RW as well. Tried it with just DVDA, but not with just Nero. I can live without Nero, but not DVD A.
Keep pluggin' em' at me, I'm SURE it's somehting simple, unless it's just a bad drive.

did you try it on a different IDE connector? IE if it's on IDE2, put all you stuff on IDE 1 on IDE2 & vice versa.

Did you try it in a diferent computer?

I am assuming you checked the link to the DMA troubleshooting guide I posted above so next:


Just to go over a checklist:
DO NOT mix master and slave with CS (cable select) on the same ribbon cable. If one is Master the other MUST be slave. If one is Cable Select the other one on the same ribbon cable must be Cable Select. (Please note that the majority of hard drives are factory default as Cable Select)

Make sure the drive is placed correctly on the ribbon cable as shown below:

M
O
T
H ==Ribbon Cable=== Slave ===Master (end of cable)
E
R ..................................„» OR „º
B
O == Ribbon Cable==Cable Select==Cable Select (end of cable)
A ..............................( as Slave)……. ( as Master)
R
D


Ribbon Cables and colors of 80 pin cables look and are to be used like this:

Motherboard============Slave==============Master
…….....….Blue…………...........……..Gray….............…………………Black
.
Make sure a master is always present, because you can not run a slave without a master.

If you try cable select and that does not work, give the master/slave setting a try. Conversly, if the master/slave setting does not work, give the cable select setting a try.

Also check this other Microsoft KB article 320553 entitled "CD-ROM drive or DVD-ROM drive appears to be missing after you install Windows XP". It may provide a solution.

You may also want to try the following as a last ditch effort:

Remove the ribbons going to the hard drive, and the DVD/RW drive Take them completely off of the motherboard.

If the the IDE arrangement looks like this

DVD/RW DRIVE
HARD DRIVE

Just switch the ide ribbons to

HARD DRIVE
DVD/RW DRIVE

Make sure the DVD/RW jumper is set to master, and the hard drive as well.

John


Also,
Have you tried logging on as an "administrator".

Sometimes the firmware updates don't go in right. Had the problem on an AO3 and it roached out the Win2k link to the secondary buss. Had to re-install Win2k.

JJK

I returned it to the store last night, exchanged it for another of the same model, and viola! It's recognized, reads correctly, burns correctly. Must have just been weirdness in the box. Thank you everyone for your input/help.
kudos to Best Buy as well, they sold me the unit over the web, but let me exchange it at the store.

Glad you resolved the problem. The burner may have had corrupted firmware.

John

"kudos to Best Buy as well, they sold me the unit over the web, but let me exchange it at the store."

They also let you order online and pick it up at the store as well. Saves on the shipping cost.