USB 2.0 card problems

Hi,
I have an IOMEGA 52x24x52 CDRW. It has been working fine plugged into the USB 1 port on my computer. Only problem is that it burns very slowly at 4X which is to be expected. I recently had a High Speed USB 2.0 PCI Card by Ali put in my computer so I could get faster speeds when I burn CDs but when I plug in the Iomega drive into this new USB port, it does not communicate with the computer well. It won’t play a CD and it does not write properly using this port either. I then reinstalled the HOTBURN software (which comes with IOMEGA) and plugged the CDRW into the USB 2.0 port but it still does not work. It does not read the disks I put in it. It stops and starts and stops again (I can hear the drive going on and off and on again) and then freezes my computer. I plugged my Hewlett Packard Printer-Scanner-Copier (which is also a 2.0 device) into this new USB 2.0 port and it works ok. I don’t know why the CDRW drive will not work when plugged into it. When I go to “Device Manager” the “USB Mass Storage Device” is installed under the old USB controller even after I un-installed and re-installed it plugging the device it into the new USB port. The man who put the USB 2.0 PCI card into my computer, after about an hour and a half of trying to figure it out, said that the USB wire was not a 2.0 wire so I bought a new 2.0 wire at Radio Shack but it did not fix the problem. Do you have any suggestions as to why the CDRW will not work on the new USB 2.0 card?
Thanks for your time,
Angie
P.S. I am a newbie

 

I'm assuming that you've installed new 2.0 drivers already right?

 

The O/S in use would be handy information...

 

Thanks for your response. The OS is Windows Me. Yeah, the guy who installed the USB 2.0 pci card installed the drivers from the software that came with it. When I got it home and it didn't function, I uninstalled and installed it again but that did not help either. I went back to him today and told him it wasn't the USB wire and he is stumped. Offered to take it out and give me my money back. Did appreciate that but I'd rather find another answer if there is one.
Angie

 

I was hoping you'd say 2K or XP, I could probably get you running with one of those... I've avoided ME like the plague, and the few times I've tangled with it, I've regretted the experience.

 

Did the guy try putting the USB card in different PCI slots?

Maybe there's a conflict going on.

Only other thing I can think of is to try a different brand card.

Iomega's site has no drivers for ME.

 

Bummer! Oh well. I guess for now it's 4X burning for me. I'm gonna try downloading the newest update for IOMEGA HOTBURN PRO and see if that helps.
Thanks for the input,
Angie

 

I just noticed something, in my device mgr. there is a little question mark in front of the "mass storage device" which, as I said before, installed under the old Universal Serial Bus controllers. I removed it uninstalled and reinstalled the IOMEGA software but it still installs under the wrong Controllers. (I also completely removed IOMEGA entires before I reinstalled the software.) It should be installing under the 2.0 USB controllers but isn't. I did contact IOMEGA but they haven't replied. They usually are good about their customer support...
Angie

 

Hi,

You may have a lack of power on the USB bus.

Devices that do not draw as much power may work fine but a device drawing more such as a CDR/RW may not work.

This is a very frequent cause of problems with USB devices.

Look towards using a powered USB 2.0 hub for around £20 US $25 or less.

hth

Ceri

 

Thanks Ceri. Good to know cause I couldn't figure out why the Hewlett Packard P-S-C worked but the RW didn't. I'm gonna check with Ali tomorrow and see what they say.
Angie

 

I am attaching a print screen I did of device mgr. Maybe this will help in showing how this USB 2.0 installed. I think that may be the problem. As you can see, there are two categories for Universal Serial Bus Controllers and the Mass storage device (which is the CDRW) installs under the second one not under the USB 2.0 one and there is a green question mark next to it.
Angie
P.S. sorry about the two attachments. The first one did not show up saying that it was an invalid file so I uploaded it again and then they both showed up.

 

I guess also it seems odd that the "ALI open host controller" got installed under the second USB serial bus controller which, I am assuming, was the category for my original USB 1.1 device in my computer.

 

Power output of the PCI USB hub is not the problem here as the CD drive has it's own power supply; your problem is data transfer. USB is short for universal serial buss serial being the key. Serial data transfer is slow no matter what version. The algorithm 52X24X52 refers to the speed the disk spins at, and not data transfer the data is read compiled and transferred to the buffer via parallel transfer then is converted to serial, transferred to the USB host controller and converted back to parallel, the consequence of all this serial to parallel conversions is that the drive has to slow down so every thing else can keep up, for faster burning you should use a internal drive or get a faster processor.

 

Not sure how that answers the question of why the Mass Storage device is installing with a green question mark no matter what port I plug it into (USB 1.1 or the new USB 2.0) and why the device does not work plugged into the new port.