Bad_Pool Header w/rewritable discs

[H36912]

I have a 6 year old Dell Dimension 8300. Windows XP pro SP3. The machine came bundled with Sonic Record Now V6.5.3. Build 650B70G.424.43. I have had very few problems with the machine as a whole. I have a DVD drive and a DVD/CD-RW drive. Either drive will play a prerecorded non rewritable disc. I can load software, listen to CD's, watch movies etc. Sometime within the last 9 months I lost the ability to even look at any rewritable disc. Whether it be a CD or DVD, in either drive, a RW disc will bring up the BSOD and the Bad-Pool_Header message. The error codes vary slighlty depending on which drive I use and I can provide them if needed. There is a lot of information out there on the infamous Bad Pool Header BSOD but nothing specific to my situation. Most seem to deal with machines that won't even boot. My machine is normal untilI put in said RW disc. I have been working around the issue with Flash drives but would really like to be to able to burn or read the occasional RW disc. Is there anyone willing to help me work through this problem?

 

Thanks

[fred58]

I have a 6 year old Dell Dimension 8300. Windows XP pro SP3. The machine came bundled with Sonic Record Now V6.5.3. Build 650B70G.424.43. I have had very few problems with the machine as a whole. I have a DVD drive and a DVD/CD-RW drive. Either drive will play a prerecorded non rewritable disc. I can load software, listen to CD's, watch movies etc. Sometime within the last 9 months I lost the ability to even look at any rewritable disc. Whether it be a CD or DVD, in either drive, a RW disc will bring up the BSOD and the Bad-Pool_Header message. The error codes vary slighlty depending on which drive I use and I can provide them if needed. There is a lot of information out there on the infamous Bad Pool Header BSOD but nothing specific to my situation. Most seem to deal with machines that won't even boot. My machine is normal untilI put in said RW disc. I have been working around the issue with Flash drives but would really like to be to able to burn or read the occasional RW disc. Is there anyone willing to help me work through this problem?

 

Thanks

Sounds like a hardware problem. Had similar situation with both DVD drives on IBM Thinkcenter, Win xp. The cable that connects the two drives to the mother board may be bad. I replaced mine for $25 US and both drives work fine now. It is a cheap and easy try.

 

Fred

[H36912]

Thanks, I'll give it a try a let you know.

[H36912]

Well I tried a different cable but at start up I get a error that says the secondary drive 0 and secondary drive 1 not found. Switched back to the original cable and still get the same message. Any thoughts?

 

Thanks

[H36912]

Update - switched the drives to a different machine where they worked fine. Switched IDE cables and they still worked fine. Put everything back into original machine. Plugged IDE cable into the other connection. Drives are now found and read but Sonic Record Now doesn't see the DVD/CD RW.

[H36912]

Okay this seems to be resolved now. I had to uninstall the RecordNow software then reinstall it. Since then I have read mulitple types of discs in both drives and have burned multiple DVD's w/o the BSOD. All newly burned DVDs read and play in another machine. I believe but cannot prove that the problem originated with a lost IDE channel either due to a faulty cable or motherboard connector. Once I switched to the second IDE cable connection on the mother board the drives were found and would read but not burn. Driver reinstalls(they were the latest versions) did not help. Uninstaling and reinstalling RecordNow was the final nail in this coffin........so far. I suppse it is possible that the cable is still faulty and is just routed internally so that the bad wire or wires are now making a connection. Similar with the motherboard connection. Anyway hope this helps someone else.