Liteon DH20A4P-21C

vbimport
#1

HELP lol

I got my forst lousy liteon today not impressed at all, its loud its cronk and above all bugged to hell and back!

i thought id go for the Liteon DH20A4P-21C seemings as its newer than the straight dh20a4p, however im not sure but i think ive knackered the firmware because ive tried flashing it the default one avilable on the liteon site, and it wont read .exe files from the cd whatsoever.

i cant remember for the life of me whether it was able to out of the box,
any ideas guys? it burns okish i think, 1st try cdr was blank and 2nd try the RMPS or sub channel wasnt found AFAIK.

am i best returning thias to misco :frowning: or does anybody have a life savior clue?

Spinifex.

#2

Welcome to CD Freaks. :slight_smile:

The -21C at the end of the name is just describing what the drive comes with/whether it’s retail or OEM, not how new/old it is. :wink: The DH20A4 series is one of the newer drive series, with only the A6 series [and the barely-released 22x drive series] being any newer.

When you say the drive can’t read any .EXE files, do you mean that you can’t see any of the content on discs?

How did you install the drive? Did you set the jumper on the drive as primary master or primary slave?

#3

[QUOTE=Albert;2086575]The -21C at the end of the name is just describing what the drive comes with/whether it’s retail or OEM, not how new/old it is. :wink: The DH20A4 series is one of the newer drive series, with only the A6 series [and the barely-released 22x drive series] being any newer.

When you say the drive can’t read any .EXE files, do you mean that you can’t see any of the content on discs?

How did you install the drive? Did you set the jumper on the drive as primary master or primary slave?[/QUOTE]

i removed the jumper from the middle to the far right? i copied from what my original dvdrw said which the jumper was far right? i believe thats master? this has crossed my mind!?

am i best putting the jumper back to the center? like it was from manufacturers?

it cant read an exe file, it hangs tring to read them on the disk and doesnt even give them an icon or anything, if i try and launch an incompleted read exe from disk it hangs even more!?

im lost. annoyed with liteon.
cheers,

#4

Check your old drive. The old drive may have a different jumper configuration. Also, how is the drive connected on the cable?

How many discs have you tried, and are they CDs or DVDs?

When trying to read discs, does CPU usage suddenly jump up?

What are your system specs?

I know this is a lot of questions, but trying to get as much info as possible. :wink:

#5

[QUOTE=Albert;2086585]Check your old drive. The old drive may have a different jumper configuration. Also, how is the drive connected on the cable?

How many discs have you tried, and are they CDs or DVDs?

When trying to read discs, does CPU usage suddenly jump up?

What are your system specs?

I know this is a lot of questions, but trying to get as much info as possible. ;)[/QUOTE]

my computers fine m8, if it worked with a dual layer philips drive its got to work with this liteon one way or another, im wondering if its because my old drive was IDE and this is EIDE. and of course im having to use what my pc’s cabling has got IDE? i know eide is hardware only related but somets wrong.

i got a AMD athlon 64 3800+ and im using cds, also with dvd mp3 disks that ive got i get I/O error when reading hidden files like thumbs.dll?

am gonna try centre pins and see what happens, if its still the same ill try running from the HD ide cable

this is ridiculous lol

#6

Why is it ridiculous? Usually, there is a diagram on the label (or housing) indicating what the jumper settings are for Master, Slave, and Cable Select. Instead of just blindly set it to what it was as on the old drive, why not actually spend 10 seconds looking at it to determine if that’s the setting you need? Most LiteOn drives are shipped in the “center” position, as you called it, meaning, it’s set to slave. “Far right” isn’t an answer. You will need an 80-conductor IDE cable as well.

#7

[QUOTE=KTL;2086598]Why is it ridiculous? Usually, there is a diagram on the label (or housing) indicating what the jumper settings are for Master, Slave, and Cable Select. Instead of just blindly set it to what it was as on the old drive, why not actually spend 10 seconds looking at it to determine if that’s the setting you need? Most LiteOn drives are shipped in the “center” position, as you called it, meaning, it’s set to slave. “Far right” isn’t an answer. You will need an 80-conductor IDE cable as well.[/QUOTE]

thanks, it seems i need an 80 pin IDE cable. i tried my dvd drive on the one for the HD since thats 80 pin but because the lead wasnt long enough i tried plugging the wrong ends in the mobo but it wouldnt work, so ive got an 80 on order!

just one question tho, the mobo has a blue socket for the HD thats 80 pin but the one next to it the socket is black!? will that matter? as im going to plug an 80 into a black socket anyway!

Spinifex.

#8

Spinifex, I’d suggest to read the owner’s/user’s manual to get idea of what these connectors (or any hardware) mean. Blindingly plugging in connectors, jumpers, etc. without knowing what it means is NOT a good way to add components to your computer.

#9

Note that it’s not 80-pin. It’s 40 pin, 80-wire cable. The extra 40 wires are there to ensure the quality of higher-speed DMA data transfer, and prevent signal degradation.

I agree with KTL. Double check your manuals to make sure you know exactly what you’re doing.

#10

[QUOTE=Albert;2086701]Note that it’s not 80-pin. It’s 40 pin, 80-wire cable. The extra 40 wires are there to ensure the quality of higher-speed DMA data transfer, and prevent signal degradation.

I agree with KTL. Double check your manuals to make sure you know exactly what you’re doing.[/QUOTE]

@ the 2 guys above, when it comes to cabling im a novice but sit me in front of a computer and ill happily decompile anything :slight_smile:

errmmm thats what i kinda meant, 40 wires + 40 earths :wink:
i was just asking whether plugging blue ends into black motherboard sockets mattered or not? i guess not? as its only wire side and hardware side that makes the difference!

the liteon from miscos did not come with a manual or instruction book nor a IDE cable which i though was quite frankly rollox!
however you can download the PDF from liteon site so i will take a look now i actually own one :slight_smile:

if the 80 IDA cableing does not work how do i go about getting the default firmware for my model? also running the manufacturers exe fails maybe thats a sign of bad cabling too?

many thanks for all your help as ive also just rounded off a chicken vindaloo in this humid heat lol :a

#11

just like to say upgrading from a 40 conductor to 80 conductor solved all the problems.

also if your stuck with a 40 conductor simply goto

START, settings, control panel, system, hardware, device manager, IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers, click +, right click on secondary IDE channel (or the one your dvd drives on) , advanced settings, and choose PIO mode for time being.

after i did this it started working normally and on the next reboot it went to multi word dma mode2.

now i have 80 conductor its running at optimum speed, Ultra DMA mode 4.

Cheers,
Spinifex.

#12

It may work with 40 wire cable in PIO mode, but burns will be very slow, 2 to 3 times as long as DMA mode in my experience. It’s well worth 2 or 3 bucks for an 80 wire cable IMO.

#13

[QUOTE=bevills1;2088287]It may work with 40 wire cable in PIO mode, but burns will be very slow, 2 to 3 times as long as DMA mode in my experience. It’s well worth 2 or 3 bucks for an 80 wire cable IMO.[/QUOTE]

definetly is worth a few quid for 80 conductor especially with flEaBAY at your beck and call :slight_smile:

Spinifex.

#14

The end that is blue usually goes to the mb. Just hold the cable. The master and slave should be close to each other. The mb end should be longer.

#15

[QUOTE=Spinifex;2086589]my computers fine m8, if it worked with a dual layer philips drive its got to work with this liteon one way or another, im wondering if its because my old drive was IDE and this is EIDE. and of course im having to use what my pc’s cabling has got IDE? i know eide is hardware only related but somets wrong.

i got a AMD athlon 64 3800+ and im using cds, also with dvd mp3 disks that ive got i get I/O error when reading hidden files like thumbs.dll?

am gonna try centre pins and see what happens, if its still the same ill try running from the HD ide cable

this is ridiculous lol[/QUOTE]

If you want help then you should at least listen to the suuggestions & BTW you can’t just move the jumper from the middle to the right!!! you need to make sure what the jumper config. is supposed to be on the top of the drive. could be all the way to the right or left. and the 20A4p is not going to work properly with a 40 wire IDE cable Do you have an 80 wire cable?? and are you running in at leats UDMA mode 2 (Mode 4 best) but I have found that liteon’s also run ok in mode 2 unlike pioneer’s

#16

The user has corrected the issue.

#17

id just like to say that these drives are awful and totally rubbish.
really cheap parts, they are very very noisy (ask anybody or get another review) it shakes ya case and vibrates to heck, and it also spits cd/dvd’s back out at you so you basically have to catch your disks to stop them from jamming in the drive when ejecting! i lost quite a few disks due to this problem.

so i took a hammer to this £20-£25 brand new drive and put the metal in the recycling bin!

if you want a good replacement i personally recommend the LG GSA H55N or H55L (n=normal L=lightscribe)

cheers,
Spinifex.