My computer, whether being used or not, apparently searches the DVD drive for something. It can be frequent or less frequent and I can’t narrow it down to a specific situation (e.g. a specific program being open) although I am suspicious about Windows Media Player. On each day there are about 50 entries in the Event Viewer, which read ’source: atapi, description, the device, DeviceIdeIdeport1 did not respond within the timeout period’. The error does not seem to be causing any evident problems, which is what has me worried! The computer is running Windows XP.

This is a tricky error message, as there could be several different causes of the problem. The error message itself means that the system is requesting data from the device, but the device does not respond within the timeout period (or is too slow to provide the data before the timeout expires). As your DVD drive is searching for something, when there is evidently nothing there, I can say with some degree of certainty that Ideport1 refers to your DVD drive. The first cause could be related to some CD or DVD software on your computer causing problems for your DVD drive. However, you have been unable to establish whether some specific software is causing the problem (even though you have suspicions about Windows Media Player). It appears you have attempted to narrow down the problem by closing programs, etc’¦ to check whether the problem persists, but have been unsuccessful in pin-pointing the problem program (at the risk of using too much alliteration’¦). However, this problem is generally hardware related, so we will focus our attention on this perspective of the problem.

There could be several reasons why this problem occurs. We will start with the most simple and progress to the complex. Firstly, not to state the obvious, but do you have a CD or DVD which you semi-permanently keep in your DVD drive? Problems such as yours have been reported when attempting to read bad/corrupt media.

Secondly, we should check for any conflicts by opening the Device Manager. Go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Control Panel’ and open the System control panel. Click the ‘Hardware’ tab and click the ‘Device Manager’ button. Expand ‘DVD/CD-ROM drives’, right-click your DVD drive and select ‘Properties’. Click the ‘General’ tab and check the status for any conflicts.

Secondly, the DVD drive could have the incorrect jumper settings. Every IDE device must be connected to an IDE bus. Each IDE bus supports two IDE devices. One device must be a master and the other must be the slave. You will notice on the back of all IDE devices there are three jumper settings: master, slave or cable select. If you only have your DVD drive on the IDE bus, make sure it is set to master. If you have two devices, make sure one is set to master and the other to slave. Avoid using cable select as this doesn’t always work properly.

A third hardware related cause could be a faulty IDE cable. If the cable has become damaged, this may cause the signals and data travelling along the cable to become corrupt. You could always try replacing the IDE cable. They cost around $15 and are available from most computer stores. However, I recommend trying all the other suggestions before splurging on a new cable.

If all else fails, we really need to narrow down the cause of the problem to either: the computer; or the DVD drive. My current thinking is the DVD drive may not be compatible with Windows XP (as is the case with certain pieces of hardware). To test this theory, replace the DVD drive in the computer with a known good drive which works with Windows XP. If the problem ceases (i.e. the system searching the DVD drive for a disk, and the error messages in Event Viewer), it looks like you need a new DVD drive. If the problem continues, please contact me again.