DVD-RW worked in XP, Then Ubuntu, Now not in XP

[NunyaB]

I am not sure why I keep running into issues no one else seems to have. At least a search did not come up with a match in the forums. To further flail my ignorance for the world to see...

I have built a mini itx desktop with switchable OS drives. It has a pioneer ide DVD-RW drive that was working fine in the Windows XP OS versions. I had the issue with Ubuntu with the boot loop problem. I found the updates created the problem and reverted back to pre-update Ubuntu and all is well. Tonight I switched back to Windows XP and the DVD drive will read but not write CDs/DVDs. I switched back to Ubuntu and it writes just fine. I tried Mint 8 it doesn't, back to XP it still doesn't.

Has anyone got any suggestions on what's up with this?

For now my inclination is to uninstall then reinstall the DVD-RW in XP and Mint to see if that corrects the problem BUT I don't want this to be necessary every time I switch drives nor do I like the idea that something is being done to the drive between installs. I have no idea what that could be but it's really strange.

Thanks In Advance!

[remoulder]

Nothing in an OS alters the hardware or firmware in a drive. I take it from your post you have removable drives with different OSes on and are swapping them around to boot your choice? Are you shutting down completely when you do this? Are the cables secure, is the BIOS set correctly, I assume yes for both. How are things connected? Sorry to ramble, just typing as trying to think of answers.

[NunyaB]

Thanks for replying!

I understand the "rambling" as that is exactly the sort of thing my mind is going through to solve the problem. Yes to the swapping of OS drives, yes to complete shut down before swapping. yes to the bios & IDE cables. The biggest relief from your reply is the confirmation the OS does do anything to the hardware which is exactly my understanding but it just makes no sense that it was working in XP, the worked fine with Linux, then didn't for XP, but back to working fine in Linux.

I will continue my investigation and post my findings. Thanks again so much for replying remoulder ! Take Care!

[NunyaB]

Just reread that post:

Correction! "The biggest relief from your reply is the confirmation the OS does do anything to the hardware "

should be "doesn't do anything"

[pompom]

Welcome to Linux Mint!

When I ran into this kind of problem in the past, it was a bent pin on the IDE interface. Linux is a lot more forgiving then XP and there is more better effort with error correction. If you have not disco the IDE cables and the red stripe has the correct alignment, then I would bet my wampum on the Windows somehow corrupting the driver. The corrupting of the driver can frequently happen with UNC (unrecoverable critical error) on the HDD (if the drive is 5 years or older) or abnormal program termination such as a crash or power failure. Abnormal program termination can happen more often than not and "should" be accepted as the normal course of doing business with Redmond. Reinstalling the driver would be of course the most logical remedy.

Cheers,

pompom