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Program Memory Area (PMA) update failure when burning DVD or CD
I have tried everything for two months to fix this, except replace the drive. The problem is intermitten. I can burn one disc, and the next two fail. Burn two more discs, and the next five fail. It is truly random. The error happens when writing the lead-in on the disc. It usually says something like "Program Memory Area Update failure" or similar depending on the software used. The disc becomes unusable. Yet, if it gets past the lead-in without an error then it finishes just fine. These are the tests I have done so far:
1. used multiple burning software- imgburn, nero, CDburnerXP, starburn, even windows built-in burner. All fail with the same randomness and same frequency.
2. used multiple vendor discs- I am a business and had my vendor give me discs of every major brand. I usually prefer Taiyo Yuden discs for their reliability. All brands failed with the same randomness.
3. burn multiple files and formats- ISO, data, music. The same file can be used (e.g. an ISO file) several times and it will fail with the same randomness and frequency.
4. Uninstall, reinstall, roll-back STPD drivers, RAID drivers, ATAPI drivers, SCSI drivers, SATA drivers. I really feel that this is where the problem is. I just need to find the right combination. These problems seem to have occured after a Dell recommended firmware update, BIOS update, and driver update. I think so anyway.
I have the Studio 435T, i7 920, 6GB RAM, GH50N 16x DVD burner (SATA), ATI Radeon 4870, 1TB drive.
Does anyone have any ideas or have had this problem before? I dread calling Dell Tech Support. They are a nightmare that I never want to repeat again.
If someone has a newer 435T and wouldn't mind taking a snapshot of the device manager with the following twirled down- DVD/CD ROM drives, IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, Storage controllers- that would be a huge help (see a sample below). I can compare to what I have now, driver-wise, and try to match it.
Thanks to everyone who can help me!
osprey4
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April 7th, 2010 12:00
Hi Lowry Sam,
LG drives seem to be prone to this. I do not see any remedies beyond a firmware update. Have you checked Dell Downloads? I see a B102 f/w out on the web.
lowrysam
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April 7th, 2010 13:00
I have B103 in there now. I received it from the dell drivers updates in January. I still wonder if this was the problem. Is it possible to roll-back firmware?
osprey4
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April 7th, 2010 17:00
Lowry Sam,
Yes, that's exactly what I would suggest. There is no problem installing older firmware. Same procedure.
lowrysam
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April 9th, 2010 20:00
It didn't work. I restored it back to B102, the firmware it started with. The first two discs worked... the next two failed. This is what it says:
I swear it is a SCSI / ATAPI / SATA issue. I need to know what drivers I should have that work. If someone could give me that screen capture I mentioned previously, that would help.
osprey4
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April 10th, 2010 05:00
Lowry Sam,
The actual device driver for any optical drive is generic to the operating system. But you could try going to the Intel site for a better matrix storage driver.
At some point, if you consider going with another drive, they're fairly inexpensive, ~$25 or so. You could keep your existing drive and add a second.
lowrysam
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April 10th, 2010 07:00
The drivers issue is a mess. I started out with the Intel ICH10 SATA controller and the jMicron controller installed...I think. Then I used the Dell recommened updates to update both. Only now the Intel controller was called ICH10R (emphasis added). Is there a difference? Well, I went to the intel site to download their recommended driver and it gave me the same thing, ICH10R. Since then I have uninstalled, reinstalled, rolled-back and installed Microsoft SCSI alternates. I trolled numerous boards and tried all kinds of tweaks and software. Nothing has worked. I have done so much that I can't remeber what I had in the first place.
If only I could see a sample of a working device manager, I could have a good starting point. I'm not sure that buying another drive is the answer here if it is driver related. My computer is not classifying the drive as a SATA like it should. It sees it as ATAPI or IDE. I don't know why.
osprey4
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April 11th, 2010 12:00
Yes, that's a good point. The drive seems to be running in IDE-emulation mode, whereas it should be AHCI. However, I'm not seeing this as an option in the BIOS. It's a bit tricky to change IDE-emulation to AHCI but it can be done. I'm afraid I can't provide instructions but Google is your friend.
lowrysam
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April 12th, 2010 08:00
I fixed it! Well, I'm 99% sure I did. We were on the right track and what you said about AHCI and IDE-emulation was pretty close. It was the ICH10R (Intel Controller Handler 10 RAID) that I downloaded in January from Dell. Even Intel was saying that this was the recommended driver when I visited their site.
Well, I didn't like the RAID (R) part of the filename so I searched all over the Intel site for the original ICH10 file (no R). It was next to impossible to find anything using their search engine. I found the automatic "Intel Chipset Device Software" for my chipset (X58 or 5 series). For those looking for the same file, it is called infinst911autol.exe. I ran it. It installed only one file: ICH10. All of my SATA ports came back and my drive was once again indentified as SATA. The RAID driver was screwing all of that up.
I did 5 burns and they all worked perfectly. I'm hoping that's it. SO, the lesson here is: don't upgrade from the Dell site unless it is absolutely necessary. And this is despite the constant e-mails from Dell recommending that you upgrade. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
osprey4
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April 12th, 2010 18:00
Way to go!! Glad to have gotten you pointed in the right direction.