Greetings TCLUGers who don't mind reading about Win* problems, I imagine I would also have a problem under Linux, but I am really writing this because I am really frustrated with a problem I am having installling a CD-RW drive in my parent's computer. I suspect the computer as the problem, and not the drives, but I wanted to know if anyone has seen anything like this before, and possibly suggest a solution. The computer: ---------------------- EPOX MVP3xxx mainboard (VIA chipset) K6-2 300MHz processor 384MB PC100 SDRAM Fujisu 6GB HDD (primary master) Toshiba 24x CDROM (secondary master) The CD-RW drives I've tried: --------------------------------------------- Philips 8x4x32 (cheapo best buy) Teac 8x8x32 (gns) I have tried both drives as secondary slaves and the Teac drive as a primary slave. I will try the Teac drive as a secondary master (all by itself), but I don't have much hope for that to work any better. The problem (for both drives): --------------------------------------------- The drive is recognized by the BIOS, and Win98 installs a driver for it. Win98 seems to think the drive is a CD-RW (the "properties" suggest it anyway), but the "Easy CD Creator" software has other ideas (thinks it can write, but only at "1x"). When a blank CDR is put into the CD-RW drive, the computer gets really busy. It is reading the CD-RW and reading the HDD and is slow about updating at least the CD writing software window, and sometimes the whole screen, but the mouse seems unaffected. When the blank CDR is ejected the activity dies down slowly and the system returns to "normal". Overall, system performance is negatively affected while the drive is installed, but not by an excessive amount. I installed the Philips drive and assumed the problem was with it when it didn't work. Now that the Teac drive is exhibiting the exact same behavior I suspect the computer, which seems wierd to me because the computer is pretty normal when the CD-RW is not installed. :-( I plan to install the Philips drive in another computer to test this theory tonight. Any hints? Am I missing the obvious? Thank you for reading, Troy