Slider
02-03-1999, 03:44 PM
Hello, just got my gen 3 Pioneer DVD drive yesterday and tossed the thing in my system.
I installed Zoran's softDVD player that came with my sound card and tossed in a DVD to
see how the thing would play. It was acting wierd so I decided to check the readme file of
softDVD. In the readme file it said that I needed to enable DMA for the DVD drive in order
for Zoran's softDVD to function correctly. I have absolutely no idea what DMA is (by the
way...what is DMA..what does it do, benefits, dangers, etc.) but I figured that if softDVD is
telling me to enable it, they must know what it is. Fine, I go under device manager and
under the DVD drive I go to settings and enable DMA. It says I need to reboot. Cool.
I reboot. When I got back into windows I launched softDVD and hit play but it said that the
DVD drive was empty or not ready. So I decided to browse the DVD title (I had done that
before and was able to see the directory structure and all the files and stuff) so I open up
an explorer window. Surprise surprise...no DVD drive even in explorer! Gone! What did
I do by enabling DMA?!?!? I killed my DVD drive! I'm calm...I check under device
manager, it still shows the DVD drive, but still shows it as not having DMA enabled. I
remove the DVD device from device manager and shut down the system. I physicaly
detatch the DVD drive and boot to windows, shut down, reatatch the drive and reboot to
windows...on boot up it finds the drive, but its still isn't there in windows...can't find the drive.
DOH! I look under device manager, and now instead of seeing it as the Pioneer 103S DVD
drive that it is, it sees it as a generic CD-ROM drive! DOH! I try add new hardware...doesn't
find it. I try updating the driver for the generic CD-ROM drive, there is no Pioneer DVD drive
in the list. DOH! HELP!!! I don't know what I did, but need to undo it!
I installed Zoran's softDVD player that came with my sound card and tossed in a DVD to
see how the thing would play. It was acting wierd so I decided to check the readme file of
softDVD. In the readme file it said that I needed to enable DMA for the DVD drive in order
for Zoran's softDVD to function correctly. I have absolutely no idea what DMA is (by the
way...what is DMA..what does it do, benefits, dangers, etc.) but I figured that if softDVD is
telling me to enable it, they must know what it is. Fine, I go under device manager and
under the DVD drive I go to settings and enable DMA. It says I need to reboot. Cool.
I reboot. When I got back into windows I launched softDVD and hit play but it said that the
DVD drive was empty or not ready. So I decided to browse the DVD title (I had done that
before and was able to see the directory structure and all the files and stuff) so I open up
an explorer window. Surprise surprise...no DVD drive even in explorer! Gone! What did
I do by enabling DMA?!?!? I killed my DVD drive! I'm calm...I check under device
manager, it still shows the DVD drive, but still shows it as not having DMA enabled. I
remove the DVD device from device manager and shut down the system. I physicaly
detatch the DVD drive and boot to windows, shut down, reatatch the drive and reboot to
windows...on boot up it finds the drive, but its still isn't there in windows...can't find the drive.
DOH! I look under device manager, and now instead of seeing it as the Pioneer 103S DVD
drive that it is, it sees it as a generic CD-ROM drive! DOH! I try add new hardware...doesn't
find it. I try updating the driver for the generic CD-ROM drive, there is no Pioneer DVD drive
in the list. DOH! HELP!!! I don't know what I did, but need to undo it!