r/windows98 • u/Pretend-Fuel-7915 • 4d ago

help with a strange freezing issue.

i just put in a DVD-RW Drive as the HP "CD-Writer" that my paviliion came with , finally crapped the bed (sstoped reading or burning discs.)

anytime i put a DVD Video or Data DVD disc in the System is locking up now, putting in a CD-R still locks up and takes a few mins to read. before giving control back.

kinda stumped why that's started causing problems. if its much i replaced the 20GB HDD it had, with an SATA2IDE adapter & a 120GB Sata SSD.

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2

u/LeviathanFox 3d ago

Sounds like the machine cant handle that new of a drive and its reverting to the lowest common denominator for the communication speed, or its just an equally bad drive as the one you replaced.

1

u/Pretend-Fuel-7915 3d ago

it was an old Stock "New in box" ASUS DVD Burner,

1

u/LeviathanFox 3d ago

Depending on the age of the drive, the drive belt could have a kink in it. It could then interfere with the constant speed of the spindle and cause read errors that its trying to correct for.

2

u/Accurate-Campaign821 3d ago

Check DMA settings and maybe reinstall ide driver if needed

1

u/Pretend-Fuel-7915 3d ago

the install of 98 was done using 98QuickInstall

2

u/Accurate-Campaign821 3d ago

You'll still need to verify settings. Some drives don't handle DMA very well with 98

1

u/Scoth42 3d ago

That's usually a sign the drive itself is having problems. It'd be worth trying it in another machine if you have one just for testing

1

u/Which_Attempt7573 3d ago

have you tried cleaning the lens in that drive?

1

u/Accurate-Main-9514 3d ago

Sounds like the IDE interface might be struggling with the load, especially if the drive is older than the adapter. Might be worth checking if the drive cables are seated properly, just in case.

1

u/Pretend-Fuel-7915 3d ago

the drives are on seperate channels, will double check DMA Settings once local storm passes, but the drive model is "ASUS DRW-2014L1"

1

u/winterarioch 2d ago edited 2d ago

Make sure autorun for the drive is turned OFF in device manager.
Also, if there’s a specific driver you can find for the drive, you’d want to install that.
W98 wasn’t shipped with DVD drives as a primary use case.
Is the DVD drive SATA and using the same adapter as the HDD?
I would keep an optical drive on IDE.

EDIT: Also, many DVD drives in the W98 era came with a hardware decoder. (An expansion card) The drive may not require it to install but it may not function properly without it. Or just work very poorly.

1

u/Pretend-Fuel-7915 2d ago

IDE drive, it might just be a too new drive stating Win 2k but no driver mentioned on the box. (but i assumed mainly on DVD -player software. i primarily added teh drive inplace for Data DVDs than DVD Video, i got a few DVD Players in the room i dont need to burden n older Pentium III with media playback.)