Toshi SD-R5372 - doesn't recog CD R/Ws

Question

This post contains a very detailed description of my troubleshooting steps and admittedly is a little long. I wanted to be thorough so apologies right up front, OK? Also, I can't find a forum for North America!
Here's an interesting situation. Have a Toshiba SD-R5372 combo drive on a ABit MB with an Athlon 64 with XP Pro, all up-to-date. Working fine up to about 6-8 weeks ago when it started to fail to recognize any CD R/Ws. I can't recall what I might have done or installed prior to noticing the failure. In BIOS, the optical drive is correctly identified as the Master on the Primary Channel (called Channel 1 on that screen). The HDD is a SATA drive and the BIOS identifies it correctly residing on Channel 3 (reserved for SATA use according to ABit). Insert a fresh out-of-the-package blank or a pre-recorded CD R/W (either made from this drive or my other one on machine B), and the activity light winks about 25-30 times then stays solid and only goes out when I eject the disk. The drive is connected using the last IDE connector on the cable and it is optioned as Master - all set up on the Primary IDE channel (channel 1).
In Windows, the drive is totally blocked - it just won't find the CD R/W disk. I can't see any files on a CD R/W disk (even though I know they're there), can't double click on it to get it to open. I can right click on the drive in Explorer and get the context menu to eject the disk. And if I try to copy some files, XP will create the temp file(s), throw up the "You have files to be written to the CD" bubble but on execution the Windows CD Writing Wizard on the second panel will say "There is no disk in the drive" and if I try to erase CD R/W (using Nero CD/DVD Speed), the disk is not ready, the drive is not home so the program grays out all functions.
I really worked hard trying to fix this! I'be looked all over the 'Net for an answer. First thing: Figured it's probably bad media (originally used Sony which have had no failures up to now), so I bought a stack of Maxells and then later Verbatims - still no go. Strangely it will read and write DVD /- R/Ws labelled from HP and Verbatim plus it will read and write to a variety CD-Rs, both blanks, music-homebrewed and commercially prep'd. No CD R/Ws though.
I realize there are two lasers involved. I cleaned the CD laser with a CD cleaning disk from Staples - no help. I'm reasonably sure the disk was spun because it's in a different position when I unload it. I tried a brand new IDE cable that came with the MB - no help. I left the case open all day thinking it was heat - no help. The ASUS branded power supply should be fine - it's rated at 550 W and again the combo drive works with all other media. I tried connecting it as the Master on the Secondary IDE channel - no help.
It is the only IDE drive in the system thanks to SATA. The next step was to purchase a completely new and completely different brand of combo DRIVE (Thank you Mr. Staples)!!! And now get this - After XP found new hardware and installed new drivers and reported everything was cool... same exact problem with that. Put the Toshiba back in. Uninstalled the Toshiba in Dev Mgr - rebooted - no help and XP did find and locate and successfully set up the drivers as expected. I've completely uninstalled my Nero 7.0 suite and I've also used the Nero cleaning tool - no help (Note: I left Nero CD/DVD Speed installed as the Nero cleaning tool didn't touch it). I've looked for other Roxio/Adaptec apps and as a safeguard, I've also run RoxieZap.
I've uninstalled Alcohol 120 which also then zapped the virtual drive crud - no help. ASPIchk shows no ASPI layer. Flashed the Toshiba firmware to the latest firmware set (TU56) - no help. (Are you noticing a pattern here...?) In the service console the IMAPI Service is automatically started - the IDE channels are all set to DMA mode. I updated the VIA chipset drivers using their latest Hyperion 4-in-1 IDE driver software - no change. Here's another experiment: I rebooted and as the POST goes through I insert a CD R/W disk and the drive winks but the activity light stays lit even before Windows XP presents the desktop.
There's something wrong at a very low level here... Is the drive toast after only a year? Remember, I already replaced it with another brand and got the same symptom.
Hope this makes sense. Anyway, I'd like some thoughts on this. Really miss not having this particular functionality. Thanks one and all!

Answer 1

Hello
Thanks for this detailed posting but I think it is wrong place for your problem because on this forum the most discussions are about notebooks.
I have read your posting carefully and have really no idea what you can do as next. Your troubleshooting is very impressive. If you Google a little bit around you will find a lot of topics on different forums about functionality discussions and troubleshooting.
Check also this forum http://community.compuserve.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?webtag=ws-laptop maybe you can also post there.
Good luck!