Populating Audio CD Causes Reboot in Dim2350

Question

Hi everyone,   Recently one of my Dimension 2350s started acting funny when loading an audio CD. Any CD that is inserted into the machine will not be recognized by Windows until I right click on the drive in My Computer, choose Properties..., choose Hardware tab, choose Properties on the CD drive, choose Volumes, and click Populate.   For a data CD, this works great, and afterwards I can use the CD-ROM. For an audio CD, however, once I hit the populate button and try to use the CD (in iTunes or Windows Media Player or our radio station's custom DJ app), the machine will reboot without an error.   I have tried two different CD-ROM devices (one is the original H-L Data Storage CD-RW/DVD-ROM and the other is an older 24x CD-ROM from another computer), both exhibiting the same issues.   Any ideas?   Thanks.

DELL-Stephen S · Answer

YellowBkpk,

Thank you for visiting the Dell Community Forum.

While I have never seen these exact symptoms before, that it is happening to two different drives indicates there is a software or operating system problem causing these symptoms. I tried searching the Dell and Microsoft Knowledge Base articles and could not find any reference to a problem like this. Try thinking back to when these drives last worked correctly and see if you can isolate some hardware or software change that was made to the system around this time and if so, try undoing the change and see if it helps. If you are running Windows XP, try a System Restore (see below) to a date before the problem started and see if that helps. Also try using an up-to-date scanner for both spyware and viruses to make sure your system is clean.

YellowBkpk · Answer

Thanks for the idea. I will try the System Restore. I know there aren't any spyware-related software items on there.

The only major change that I see us having is that we started using the COM1 port to try pull data from a transmitter (which subsequently didn't work and has been discontinued). Could there be something like a hardware conflict (COM port overlapping on the CD bus?) occuring?

Also, I saw a recommendation somewhere on the Dell site that I update the EasyCD Creater software to a version that supports XP better, but I cannot find where that update is located. Where is that located?

Predator · Answer

Hi Y-B,
If the Restore Point does not work, then consider re-loading the Secondary IDE chaanel, there may be a IRQ conflict. Click on the CD/RW link in my post and scroll to Section 20, article 3.

Best Regards

God, grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway,
the good fortune to run into the ones I do and the eyesight to tell the
difference.

CD/RW Link

YellowBkpk · Answer

For future reference, everyone, uninstalling Roxio EasyCD Creater Platinum solved the problem.

Storage, Drives & Media

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