Panasonic/Matshita DVD-RAM UJ-820 problem TP600E Win ME XP

[vj_tp]

Hi All,

My IBM TP600E - 2645UN1, which previously had another problem,
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=31638
is now ready for serious use. But it has a problem in Win ME & XP.

In Brief: Panasonic/Matshita DVD-RAM UJ-820S laptop optical drive in TP 600E is fine with BIOS, DOS, and bootable CDs, but is not properly (not always) recognized in Win ME & XP. Why?

Long Story:
Since March 2007, I had Windows ME running fairly smoothly, except for a funny optical drive situation. While this optical drive works fine in BIOS, DOS and with bootable CDs, when Win ME (v 4.90.3000A) loads, the second "Standard Bus Mastering IDE Hard Disk Controller" is yellowed out. Device status is "Code 10". The location of driver is C:\Windows\INF\MSHDC.INF, and that's the "best driver" Win ME finds. The driver files are ESDI_506.pdr and VMM32.VXD (IOS.vxd). And, obviously no optical drive is seen in the Windows Explorer. Here's the tricky part: if I remove the above bad device and restart Win ME, it finds and installs the same driver again, and now the optical drive is seen and usable in Win ME. But restart Win ME again, and it's back to square one (yellowed out with code 10).

Recently I installed Windows XP on another partition on the same HD, to give a Win ME / Win XP dual-boot system. BTW, I have done this seamlessly on several desktops. On this TP600E, I can start Win XP in Safe Mode without a problem. But in the Normal mode the TP 600E freezes on Win XP logo (on the "11th pass" or so of the "running bars"). Powering Off was the only way to exit... until an hour or so ago.

While typing this post on Thinkpads.com, I heard a voice that asked "have you tried without that optical drive?" Sure enough, Win XP loads fine (& fast) without the Matshita DVD-RAM UJ-820S! Can even unfreeze the Win XP, and make it continue to load, by pulling out this DVD-RAM drive, if it was in! As of now, I have a workaround in Win XP too; push the DVD drive in after Win XP has loaded. Then "refreshing" Device Manager finds it. But as with Win ME, this has to be done every re-start. And, that's not very pleasant.

Fortunately I found an old laptop CD-Rom drive (Torisan), and both Win ME & XP work fine with that unit. So the problem here seems to be an incompatibility with the Panasonic/Matshita DVD-RAM UJ-820S. Apparently, this optical drive, made OEM by Matshita, and used commonly in Toshiba laptops, has no Firmware upgrades available; the drive cover says FW: 1.00. Does anyone have a permanent fix (as opposed to my temporary workarounds) for this problem? Many thanks in advance.

[RealBlackStuff]

The good news is: there is a newer FW 1003 available here: http://forum.rpc1.org/dl_firmware.php?c ... ufactor=18
Scroll down to your model.

Seems your DVD is made for European (Region 2) discs only.

[vj_tp]

Thanks RBS!

The FW "1003" fails with "Wrong Firmware Data File is selected", so that didn't help. There seem to be many different OEM versions of this optical drive. DISC Info v 1.6.1 finds vendor specific # 40128tKME1571060416, if that helps to identify. BTW, the label on the unit says "UJ-820B", while all utilities say it's "UJ-820S" FW 1.00.

As for the DVD region it's set to Region 1, but says "Lock Detected" even with 4 changes left. I haven't tried region-coded DVD videos yet, and it's not a concern for me anyway. Thanks again.

[RealBlackStuff]

You could try this:
http://www.digital-inn.de/exact-audio-c ... 20s-2.html

[vj_tp]

RBS, you know some RealGoodStuff!

Following your link above, I found advice to disable DMA (and use PIO) on Secondary IDE Controller in Windows XP. That fixed the problem in XP! Thanks again!

In Win ME, under CD-Rom properties, the DMA box is unchecked (by default) still the problem remains. And checking DMA box doesn't help either. So I have been trying to follow a registry modification approach similar (but to disable DMA, rather than to enable it) to what's described at the top of
http://www.plasma-online.de/english/hel ... x_dma.html
but Win ME seems to be different from Win9x here. In Win ME, I can't find "IDEATAPI.MPD"; and I have v. 4.90.3000 of ESDI_506.pdr for Secondary Bus Mastering IDE Controller. No drivers are loaded (or needed) for the CD-Rom drive itself. I've also tried setting the specific driver "Standard IDE/ESDI hdc v 2.30.0007" on secondary IDE without success; yellowed out.

Since I no longer have to pull out the DVD-RAM drive, I'm fairly happy. It'd be nice to have the problem fixed in Win ME too, but I can live with it.

As your link above also shows this DVD-RAM drive has been notorious for burning problems. No wonder why people are throwing these drives away; I got this free from someone's pull an year ago. So far I haven't had problems reading disks though.

[RealBlackStuff]

Glad to hear you got the XP-side fixed.

To solve your ME-problem: delete that junk!

Seriously though, have you tried (re-)installing system drivers like:
Configuration Utility
Windows Installation Supplement for ME
Ultrabay Utility Driver
and whatever else you could use from there...

You find them on the IBM/Lenovo website: http://tinyurl.com/2n5os7

As an afterthought: to change DMA in Windows 98/se you had to set it twice before you reboot, perhaps the same applies in ME as well?

And the second afterthought: I did not want to discourage you in my first answer to you, but that DVD-RAM is an awful POS.
Save yourself the hassle and buy something decent, there is still lots of life in the old dog (TP 600E).