Recently, i upgraded my SDRAM from 256MB(128*2) to 1GB (512*2), and after few days changed by Motherboard battery. Now i am facing these problem:

1. Occasionally, windows xp restarts in middle withought giving any warning. For past 2/3 days it has stop doing so. I didnt know why was it happening, using crash-dump analysis, i found some sys files crashing. (But found no apparent reason).

Now the major problem which occured:
2. My DVD drive name changes (gibberish or bad characters with $ character) on every boot in BIOS and thus i cannot use this drive in windows xp. (Since windows xp dont recognise this drive).
In BIOS, i tried using auto-detect several times, but found no solution.

Windows xp worked perfectly correct for 2/3 days after i changed battery.
I am confused.
What could be the problem? has someone faced such thing?
Please help me find the solution or guide me in correct direction.

p.s. attached is the image of Device-Manager

Have you tested the RAM yet? I tend to suspect that as the cause of BSODs if it's just been changed.

Give http://www.memtest86.com/ a try, and see what the diagnostics say.

The drive letter of your DVD drive should be decided by Windows. Run diskmgmt.msc, find the DVD drive, right-click and choose 'Change drive letter' - see if you can assign it to something sensible.

yes, will test the RAM from memtest86.

Regarding DVD, It is not the Drive letter but DRIVE NAME that gets changed. Its not a windows problem but i think a hardware one, as BIOS also shows these gibberish characters.

waiting for reply...

my guess would be the firmware on your dvd drive is corrupted/incompatible/wonky

My guestimate is you have a Samsung SD-616T
http://forum.rpc1.org/dl_firmware.php?download_id=171

if the drive is a different model # then try searching for it on this page
http://forum.rpc1.org/dl_search.php

if the utility wont find your drive in windows, you may have to put the flash utility and firmware on a floppy and flash in DOS but it should find the drive inside windows even without drivers being installed.

no, its not samsung. But full Product name is:
PINE DVD-ROM Drive 16x Model PT-616TEB

It came pre-installed with IBM-Netvist Machine.

1. Can u tell me what caused the firmware to damge/corrupt? Can u share some information regarding firmware corruption and any links useful for me.

2. U recommend me to install samsung firmware on This pine dvd-drive?
(When i opened the CPU-case, on top of drive, its said the above model number, and in small letters it says Manufatured by Samsung)- I am not sure if i may corrupt the firmware making drive permanently unuseful. (Though it still is unuseful as of now, but still hope is there)

Thanks for support and information.

the drive was likely manufactured by samsung and then rebranded. thats pretty common practice for samsung/toshiba.

As for why/how the firmware got damaged, I cant really give you any information on why it happens but if its shos up incorrectly in the bios, I know you wont be able to fix that with a driver update.

the firmware on your cd drive may be just fine but somehow incompatible with your particular hardware combination.

come to think of it, flashing your drives bios on that machine could be a very bad idea given its stability issues (dont want it rebooting in those critical 5-10 seconds when the flash is occurring) I would recommend flashing on another PC.

Oh, and this may just be superstition on my part but i never flash a cd/dvd drive with a second drive connected. i just dont trust the flash util to find the right drive.

one last thought, if you cant fix the drive, does removing it fix your stability issues?

really bad luck of mine, i re-opened my cpu box, re-connected data cable of DVD-Drive to motherboard, and then started my windows, now the Drive is not even showing in Windows Hardware.

I am worrying, what could be the problem. All this is happening when i installed 1gb ram from 256MB. I dont know wther my motherborad(i845) is getting appropriate voltage to handle 1gb ram? and worrying whether in future my cd-write wont get damage by all these.

Nice try and help, geek. I need to clarify what do u mean by:
1. "........... I know you wont be able to fix that with a driver update."
Do u mean firmware instead of driver update?

2. "the firmware on your cd drive may be just fine but somehow incompatible with your particular hardware combination"
Earlier the drive was working fine for past 2 years in same computer/cpu-box. OR do u meand DVD-drive could handle the load of 1gb ram, (its funny to say so )

Will keep this topic updated on my finding.

Thanks all.

Those 2 things should not be related at all (memory upgrade & DVD drive issues)

I can't give you a 100% fix on this type of issue but there are a few things you might try:

downgrade your ram back to its previous state and if the problem goes away then the 2 issues are related and then we need to maybe see if you motherboard can even support that type/amount of memory and look into a possible BIOS update.

try the drive in another pc and see if it works there. (prolly upgrade the firmware while its in there if we can -couldnt hurt)

Replace the PATA cable en set your drives on CS (cable Select).

Moving this topic to the Hardware section .

No, changed with a new PATA cable (with CS jumper set), still the problem remains.
My DVD is on Secondary-MASTER (with CS selected) and CD-Writer on Secondary-SLAVE.

Now, what i did was, i disconnected my CD-Writable power cable, and then It was all fine and the problem solved. That means with 1Gb of RAM i can connect only 1 optical drive at a time.

Otherwise the problem remains, and what i also noted is the DVD-Drive changes from:
PINE DVD-ROM PT-616T
to
PINE $ DVD-ROM PT-616T$
and then again to
PINE $ DVD-ROM PT-616T

i.e., $ keeps on adding to correct device (DVD-Drive) identifier.

Now, what i m thinking is whether my system can afford that much power(Voltage) (my motherborad is i845)?

Since disconnecting RAM is very difficult in the box, i will try removing or changing SDRAM (downgrading to 512mb) next time and tell u the result.

For time being, please post more valuable tips to solve the problem.

What do you have on your Primary channel?

Unlike what many people may think, having two optical devices on the same channel is not the best thing to do.

And Cable Select, in my experience, has proved to be more prone to errors than good ol' jumper settings.
Also, read here:
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confCable80-c.html
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/conf_CS.htm
your cable may simply be non-CS compatible.

If you have a hard disk as Primary Master, I would try putting the DVD as Primary slave, then your CD writer should go on Secondary Master (or if you have a second hard disk, put the CD writer as Secondary slave).

Use jumpers with the proper settings on both hard disks and optical drives.

jaclaz

On primary-Master -> Hard Disk
Primary slave-> Empty (Will try this solution)



Configured jumper to Secondary-master(instead of CS). (Cable is though 40 conductor IDE) But still the problem remains.
Read: Its an old drive, out of blue one day this problem arose.



Agreed jaclaz, But no one in forum is reading completely my post/problem scenario.:
1. After upgrading my Ram from 256MB to 1GB, and 3 days after this problem arises. And Windows-XP BSOD which use to crash several times in a day, now it crashes once in 2 days.
[Note: I now replaced with my Old RAM, but the problem remains). So i think new RAM is fine and in good health.

2. I tried all permutuation+combinations of configuration(including new cable change),
The point is DVD drives now only works when i disconnect my cd-writer (on Secondary-Slave).

PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME sort out point number 2 above, why this is so?

I think (probably), there is some point of voltage(power) problem between, something and DVD Drive. If that is, how do i find this problem (Before buying a new drive).

I may be on wrong path, but will definitely try the above solution (putting dvd drive on Primary-slave). But my drive before RAM-Upgrade was working perfectly for 3 years, out of blue one day i was into this problem.

Thanks jaclaz. Will reply soon, if it works or not.

Cannot connect my optical drive to primary-master as the cable is not that lengthy.

Well, finally i am attaching dump files (minidumps) for anlaysis, Please some anlayse these to find probable cause of problem.

Waiting for reply.

Probably a bad IDE cable or IDE cable connection!

Changed the IDE cable with a new one., but still the problem remains. So cable fault ruled out.

Can someone see the dump files to find the reason and solution.

Thanks.

Can some one in forum, please find out the problem , using Windows XP dumps as uploaded above?