DVD drive not recognised in BIOS/ BIOS freezing

[Hyllus]

As the title says, I've fully upgraded my computer two months ago except for PSU and HDD. Two weeks ago my HDD "died" so I bought a new one. It works fine, but the day I got it installed in a store I came back home the same day only to find out that the DVD drive was not recognised in the BIOS.

After numerous reboots sometimes it was recognised in the BIOS. One out of ten times it was recognised, when getting into windows though I could not see it under "My computer" listed along the HDD nor the Device Manager and the times that I could see it, as soon as I put a disk to be read the DVD device disappeared from the list and as a consequence it didn't read the disk. I couldn't do anything to solve it because I didn't even have a connection, I couldn't put in any disk to install motherboard drivers nor any other driver so naturally I sent it back the next day because after all after 10-15 reboots each time with only 2 being able to get into windows( every other time it froze in the BIOS looking for the device for ages).

Almost a week after they replaced the DVD drive, got it home and started installing windows updates all fine and dandy until Service Pack 2 for Vista 32-bit. It couldn't get installed, it reached stage 3 to 100% and then reverted back. Tried every solution to no avail, so as a last resort I had to do a clean install of Windows. I booted from Windows DVD , windows installed and everything, installed motherboard drivers through DVD. Then I proceeded to install the Updates for Windows. When the first pack of upgrades installed it prompted for restart, after that a BSOD came up. Since that BSOD the DVD drive began behaving like the first time. So something in the updates must have messed it up, something in the registry I suspect since before the clean install of mine it was doing the same thing after every update.

The wierd thing is that this time SP2 installed fine and every update installed with no errors but the DVD drive is still behaving like the first time, I've tried even fixing the registry(as microsoft says, not messing around) but even that won't do it since the entries I have to delete according to microsoft are not there. I'm at my wits' end and now after each 10-15 reboots about 2 times it can see the device and proceed to windows(all the other times it freezes completely) but when it does that it appears in "My Computer" for a second and then it's gone. I'll phone the company today for support but I doubt anything is going to be fixed, they'll surely tell me to send my PC to them and I'm sure as hell a permanent solution isn't going to be found.

Since that HDD change the day I get my PC home a new problem comes up. First time it wasn't booting at all due to faulty memory, sent back, got it back--> DVD drive not recognised. I sent it back again the next day for the DVD drive got it this Saturday and now again the DVD drive has problems, I don't really know if it is hardware or software faults I'm so confused I'm ready to give up. Maybe it's their technician's incompetency or Microsoft's not so stellar windows updates that mess with people's drives and registry.

Any suggestions are welcome but know that I have tried most things.

[PoleCatsAlt]

Question: HDD - SATA or IDE?

DVDROM - same question.

Last - under warranty?

[Hyllus]

HDD is SATAIII
DVDRW is SATA too.

In BIOS though it says IDE Channel 1: <<insert disk model>>. For both the HDD and the DVD drive I don't know why, I'm not much of a tech expert but at least I know some basic stuff. Yes they are both under warranty, I am not afraid for having to pay, I am afraid of the technicians' incompentence and inconsistency.

I mean they can't be serious when I send them a computer with a dead HDD and after a week I get it back with a new one but this time it won't even boot properly because of faulty memory stick(which worked fine before), sending it back again to see him unplug the devices from the motherboard like he was fixing a toaster with no care whatsoever, no antistatic gloves, getting it back with a new memory stick and on the way home the reset button fallen from the computer and hearing some screws bouncing around the case. Guess what, enough is enough, I opened the case, the GFX card was missing a screw to fix it's position and two screws lying around, I put one screw to keep the GFX card in position because otherwise it moved when applying the DVI connector, the other screw I don't know from where it was. The best of all? He didn't even plug in the power connector for the DVD drive, I plugged it myself but after that started the problems that I described above and since then I won't send it to that outlet anymore so I sent it to their main "place" after that one. I got it on Saturday as I said and they supposedly changed the drive yet after a clean install of windows same all over again. One hour ago I checked the HDD with HDD tune pro and it had 251 ing Ultra DMA CRC error counts(no red block physical errors though phewww). What is going on here?

Edit: PC transportation done by myself on foot and it's damn heavy.

Edit2 : Did I mention that BIOS freezes for forever trying to detect the drive (it freezes even when trying to enter setup)? I am writing from my sister's laptop now.

[Condottiere 40K]

1. OS
A> Does it work under XP?
B> Does it work with a live Linux OS (booted from CD or USB)?
C> Does it work with Windows 7? You may have to borrow a copy from someone else for installation, Linux can be downloaded and installed burnt on a USB/CD.

2. Hardware
A> If the above work, the problem might be your motherboard, which I find tends to be the most troublesome of the components, since the rest tend to be plug and play.
B> The specific components you have may have manufacture defects for the batch you have bought; try googling "problems (manufacturer) (product number)", or some such variant.

[Hyllus]

System: As I said in 1st post is Vista 32bit.
Unfortunately I can't test it under XP but if what you mean is OS incompatibility, no that's not the case for the particular products. A faulty batch of products though may be possible, but what amazes me is that before the HDD change everything was fine, so that's the only thing that has changed. I'll search for possibly faulty products and I'll post it. As for the BIOS lockup when trying to enter setup I think it's some memory stick of a particular model that is the culprit.

[PoleCatsAlt]

HDD is SATAIII
DVDRW is SATA too.

In BIOS though it says IDE Channel 1: <<insert disk model>>. For both the HDD and the DVD drive I don't know why, I'm not much of a tech expert but at least I know some basic stuff. Yes they are both under warranty, I am not afraid for having to pay, I am afraid of the technicians' incompentence and inconsistency. ...

Something wrong here - suspect technician ignorance.

System: As I said in 1st post is Vista 32bit.
Unfortunately I can't test it under XP but if what you mean is OS incompatibility, no that's not the case for the particular products. A faulty batch of products though may be possible, but what amazes me is that before the HDD change everything was fine, so that's the only thing that has changed. I'll search for possibly faulty products and I'll post it. As for the BIOS lockup when trying to enter setup I think it's some memory stick of a particular model that is the culprit.

Manually check which SATA ports your drives are connected to. HDD should be on a lower SATA port than DVD - legacy programming from MS during IDE days. If HDD plugged into port 1-3 than DVD should plug into something higher - 5,6,7 - doesn't matter.

Still have not said if under warranty.

Last - have you looked to flash your bios? may be a problem. Have you checked thar HDD? Something is not kosher here . Good luck.

[Hyllus]

Something wrong here - suspect technician ignorance.

Maybe the BIOS means something else with IDE I don't know, there seem to be only SATA connections in the motherboard.

Manually check which SATA ports your drives are connected to. HDD should be on a lower SATA port than DVD - legacy programming from MS during IDE days. If HDD plugged into port 1-3 than DVD should plug into something higher - 5,6,7 - doesn't matter.

I'll try it as a last resort.

Still have not said if under warranty.

Under warranty both of them, look at the last line of the quotation you made in your last post.

[PoleCatsAlt]

Can you tell me what bios you are running? May be time for DxDiag log or CPU-Z screens to help you out. Can you handle either?

Since still under warranty stick with them. But they may not know how to deal with faulty equipment. Let us know. Good luck.