Help Please ATAPI Problem (Windows XP Pro SP 1)

[mn072065]

Hope someone can help. I've looked up this problem but still have no clue how to fix it. Here is my problem: Every couple of minutes my PC slows down or halts. I went to event viewer and noticed this error: devicedeviceideide port 0 did not respond within the timeout period. Event ID 9, atapi. I do not know why this is happening. I know it's annoying. I'm doing the necessary backup to reformat my pc. Which I really did not want to do. Please can someone help me before I format. I have at least 15 cdr's worth of stuff to back up. Any help would greatly be appreciated.
PS- I went to microsoft and looked up ide 9 errors, but I still do not understand what they ask for.

[WyllyWylly]

The most likely cause for this problem is that your CD-ROM or another IDE drive (perhaps the hard drive) is failing. I strongly doubt that formatting and reinstalling is going to solve this problem for you - and it's a drastic step, so don't take it just yet. Keep your backup, though, that's always a good thing.

Here are some things that you can try. An Event ID 9 is almost always a hardware problem, and more often than not is a drive attached to the IDE controller on the motherboard. If you aren't comfortable with this process yourself, take thyour PC to a hardware shop and ask them to help you diagnose it. If you feel comfortable on the inside of a PC (and it's really not that scary), try these steps yourself - and after each one, see if the problem persists. The object here is to remove variables and narrow down the potential causes.
<UL><LI>Remove all IDE devices except for the hard drive itself.
<LI>Replace the IDE cables on your hard drive and/or CD-ROM.
<LI>Move the CD-ROM to the second IDE channel if it's not already. If that is where it's attached, make it a slave on the hard drive's IDE channel.
<LI>Remove other controllers that may be creating problems, if you have any.[/list]This should be a fairly solid check list to start with, and hopefully will help you narrow it down. For what it's worth, I have had this experience more than once with a CD-ROM drive that is on its way out. Good luck, and postback if you have any questions or even just to let us know what the progress is.

Best,

[mn072065]

Wow! thanks. It's scary. Why would this happen? WHat did I do to cause this? I will probalbly take to a professional to check. I cannot afford right now to lose my data. Thanks for the info.

[WyllyWylly]

What did you do? You bought a computer. <img src=/S/laugh.gif border=0 alt=laugh width=15 height=15> Seriously, these things happen from time to time, no intervention from you required. Computers are not 100 percent failsafe, and that's why there are shops around to help with them.

If you take it to a shop, you might want to print that list and take it along with you, and ask them to use it - whatever you do, get details on the work that was done so that you know what happened. Keep backing up, and if they tell you they need to format the drive - press for them to try replacing the cables and/or CD drive first, to see if that's the culprit. Those are both low cost repairs (excluding labor).

Good luck!!

[mn072065]

Thank you very much. I really appreciate the help. Where I work they have an IT team. I know one of them good and will ask for his help. I did print out the page to show them. Thank you so much for your help. I can always cout on this forum. Thanks

[mn072065]

Hi. Hope WyIIyWyIIy you are there. This is what I have done. I have right now pc open and with both cd burner cables off. They are not off the mother board I took them off the cdr drives that I have only. I waited and checked event viewera and bingo 25 minutes later without touching anything I still receive same atapi error. Now what do I do? Could my hardrive be going on me? Thanks for any help. Really appreciate it.

[WyllyWylly]

Have you replaced the IDE cables? If not, try that. Narrow it down as low as you can go before thinking the hard drive is dead.

[mn072065]

I just want to let you know that I fixed it. Yes it was the IDE cable. I replaced both of them with 80 pin heavy duty wire. It has been 3 hours and no atapi error. So far so good and I really thank you for your advice.

[WyllyWylly]

Excellent news! And much cheaper than replacing a drive. <img src=/S/yep.gif border=0 alt=yep width=15 height=15>

[mn072065]

Hi- Guess what. At 10:55 PM last night that stupid error came back. I guess I counted my chickens to early. Now what i did was reverse the firmware update I had done previously with my plextor 40/13/40 cd burner. This morning I'm checking again. my next move is to reformat pc.