Could it be a bad driver update? please help

[JoeGuy34]

ok just put together a friends computer...
Barton 2500
Abit NF-7 rev 2
Buffalo pc3200 512mb
lite-on dvd/cdrw combo
160 gig hdd
geforce ti4200
and an optorite dvd burner

anyway... his system has been working fine for the past 2 wks or so, but he has been complaining about his burner having problems backing things up that my pioneer did fine with, so i told him to update to the drive on the optorite website... he had someone that is pretty computer literate help him...after posting now the start-up screen where it says detecting ide drives it just hangs there... so went over tonite.... unplugged the power cord from the optorite and it booted up fine, it didn't freeze or anything... so i went into the device manager and uninstalled the dvd burner...shut down the computer, put the power cord back in the drive and turned the computer back on..once again it didn't get past the "detecting ide devices" screen... so i unplugged the ide cable, it booted, went into windows and the device manager was calling the device a scsi for some reason.. what the heck is goin on.... then proceded to uninstall and go through the whole routine again... and still can't get it to work...
my question is could they have did something wrong when they updated the driver that messed up the drive for good? and do you guys have any idea what i could do?

thanx for the help i appreciate it...

[thebove]

are you talking a driver update, as in within windows, or a firmware upgrade for the optorite drive itself? from the symptoms you're describing, it sounds like a bad firmware upgrade, and firmware differs greatly from drivers. at the time the computer says "detecting IDE devices" you don't have any drivers loaded yet, but your system's hardware is scanning for physical drives/devices. if the firmware flash/upgrade didn't complete sucessfully, when the ide bus scans the optorite drive it may not be able to detect it properly, which is why the system hangs before it gets to windows.

Originally posted by JoeGuy34
...once again it didn't get past the "detecting ide devices" screen... so i unplugged the ide cable, it booted, went into windows and the device manager was calling the device a scsi for some reason..

what was being detected as a scsi device? maybe it's just unclear to me here, but if you unplugged the IDE cable from the optorite drive, windows shouldn't be detecting it at all, as if it didn't exist in the system.

[JoeGuy34]

sorry bout that i meant firmware update. when the IDE cable was plugged in but no power cord windows saw the opotrite drive as a scsi device... if the firmware update did go wrong is there anything that can be done, which i am doubting now, to save the drive?

thanx for the help...

[thebove]

you might be able to try the drive in another computer, see if you can get the OS to boot with it attached in that computer, and if so, try to flash the firmware again...but aside from that, it might be dead