Mike_ wrote on 2026-08-05, 14:09:

Since Alcohol 120% retro edition is free while the normal version is not, I tried to use it to burn a copy of a CD in my Ahlon XP based retro system, and it crashed in the middle of the burn. I tried Nero as well, and the same thing happened, so it's not about software. Then I tried disabling DMA for the optical drive (a Samsung DVD-R drive from 2006) and everything worked fine.

Curiously enough, this only affects writing, not reading a disk.

Motherboard (GA-7ZXE 2.1) has VIA KT133A chipset which has some reputation for DMA bugs, but can it be quite *that* bad? Also, while PIO mode is probably good enough for an optical drive, is there some workaround for this?

Are you running VIA's IDE driver or Microsoft's? Try switching to one or the other.

The cable might also cause problems so changing that and checking behavior might be a good idea. If it's 80-wire, perhaps try a 40-wire cable (UDMA33 is more than adequate). Also it's usually best to have the CD drive alone on the channel, set as master, and at the end of the cable if the cable has two device connectors. CD drives use ATAPI which seems to make things more complicated for compatibility. Some addon IDE controllers don't even support ATAPI.

swaaye wrote on 2026-08-05, 20:13:

Are you running VIA's IDE driver or Microsoft's? Try switching to one or the other.

The cable might also cause problems so changing that and checking behavior might be a good idea. If it's 80-wire, perhaps try a 40-wire cable (UDMA33 is more than adequate). Also it's usually best to have the CD drive alone on the channel, set as master, and at the end of the cable if the cable has two device connectors. CD drives use ATAPI which seems to make things more complicated for compatibility. Some addon IDE controllers don't even support ATAPI.

I tried both VIA's and Microsoft's drivers, and it didn't help. It's already the lone drive at second IDE port, and it's set as master, at end of cable. I guess I could move hard drive to second IDE port to check if there's something wrong with the port itself, but I doubt it's something caused by the cable.

Mike_ wrote on 2026-08-07, 15:28:

I tried both VIA's and Microsoft's drivers, and it didn't help. It's already the lone drive at second IDE port, and it's set as master, at end of cable. I guess I could move hard drive to second IDE port to check if there's something wrong with the port itself, but I doubt it's something caused by the cable.

I've seen cables affect drives before. You never know. Is it a standard length cable (18" I think?) Is it flat ribbon or rounded? Rounded cables were not really a great idea.

It's also possible the cause is the drive itself.

swaaye wrote on 2026-08-07, 17:01:

I've seen cables affect drives before. You never know. Is it a standard length cable (18" I think?) Is it flat ribbon or rounded? Rounded cables were not really a great idea.

It's also possible the cause is the drive itself.

I think it's standard length, and it's flat ribbon. I guess I could try another drive just in case.

What is the southbridge on your board? Is it VT82C686B? There were some issues with IDE DMA in that chip. The issues were observed the most when other PCI cards were quite "aggressive" in accessing PCI bus. The most problematic were Sound Blaster Live or Audigy.
Try to check BIOS and deactivate some fancy PCI features like caching or aggressive bus mastering.

There is some 3rd party patch, but I've never tried it.
https://www.georgebreese.com/net/software/rea … 0b21_readme.HTM

zami555 wrote on 2026-08-08, 11:49:

What is the southbridge on your board? Is it VT82C686B? There were some issues with IDE DMA in that chip. The issues were obser […]
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What is the southbridge on your board? Is it VT82C686B? There were some issues with IDE DMA in that chip. The issues were observed the most when other PCI cards were quite "aggressive" in accessing PCI bus. The most problematic were Sound Blaster Live or Audigy.
Try to check BIOS and deactivate some fancy PCI features like caching or aggressive bus mastering.

There is some 3rd party patch, but I've never tried it.
https://www.georgebreese.com/net/software/rea … 0b21_readme.HTM

Yes, that the southbridge. However, I don't have a PCI sound card, I'm using an ISA sound card instead. The only PCI card the system has is a 3com network card.

zami555 wrote on 2026-08-08, 11:49:

There is some 3rd party patch, but I've never tried it.
https://www.georgebreese.com/net/software/rea … 0b21_readme.HTM

This helped, thanks! Looks like KT133A is quite buggy...

I tried another optical drive as well, but that crashed even more often and cable had no effect.

Mike_ wrote on 2026-08-12, 13:37:

This helped, thanks! Looks like KT133A is quite buggy...

Great to hear that it helped. Thanks for sharing the good news. Thanks to you now I know that this patch works 😀

There is an edition called the "Free Edition". It is free for personal use and the download link is right below the Retro Edition