by Alektron on Tue Aug 23, 2005 9:37 pm
Generally it's best to use the IDE drivers from Windows, but I can't say for sure that Via's driver is the cause or not. I know that the Windows IDE driver is superior to Nvidia's Nforce IDE driver, though. (1) It may be worth trying.
What you need to do is try to pin-point the reason for the problem. The most likely thing is either the cable or the IDE port (connector + chipset interface) itself. From time to time there are bad connectors. I have a bad DIMM connector (or chipset interface?) on my motherboard. Anyway, you are on the right track to solve the problem. (2) Just swap in a relatively new UDMA-133 cable to be sure that is not the cause of the problem. Also, you should (3) install PLextools and do some read and write tests with the tool. I'm not sure if switching the hard drive to the other IDE port will be a trustworthy test because you may be introducing another variable into the troubleshooting: a potentially finicky hard drive. (4) Finally, you can put the Plextor on the Slave location with your hard drive on the known good IDE port, but run it at 4x or 8x burning speed to get a clean burn (first thing is to pin-point if it is a hardware or software problem). Do #1, #2, and #3 or #4 in that order and find out what Plextools says when you do a write test.