I have read some threads about ASPI layers and advice on installing the Adaptec ASPI. Is this the cure for my problem? Details below.
After I installed a DVD burner (BTC DRW11081M internal)my previously fully functional Acer 50x CD-ROM drive (Atapi) stopped working. When there is a CD in the drive & I attempt to access it, a dialogue box asks me to insert disc in drive. ControlPanel/System/Hardware/Device Manager reports "This device is working properly". I have tried changing the slave and master jumpers to no avail. Software installed with the new DVD drive was Nero 6.0.0.16 & Cyberlink Multimedia Pack shipped with the drive. Both were uninstalled but the problem remained. I am running Win XP Prof. on 3.00GHz and 1GB of RAM on a Gygabite GA-8IG100 MotherBd.
Have you tried the drives on seperate IDE channels? Autorun enabled? Example: Asus 50x cd-rom as slave and hd as master on primary IDE channel. DVD Burner as master on 2nd IDE channel.
Asus K8N nVidia nForce3 Pro 250 GB, Athlon 64 3200+, Hitachi 80 gig SATA 150, Corsair XMS 1 gig PC4000, ATI Radeon Saphire 9600 Pro (256 DDR), Windows XP Pro (64 Bit),Lite-ON SOHD 167T,, Plextor PX-712SA,BenQ 1640.
Yes it does seem like the Master/Slave thing might solve your problems... a quick and easy way to check is to look up the information on your optical drives and to see if two of them actually show up and compare this to the number BIOS reports: if they both report both your drives then its a slave/master issue (most likely both drives are set to slave and on the same channel/cable. If not then its a different problem.
To determine the make and model as well as a host of information about your optical drives, a free program called InfoTools can do the trick. Start it up and under the Drive tab, it will list all the relevant specifications and capabilities of your burner. The actual name of your burner is listed in the drop-down box at the top (those numbers before the name of your burner are important too!). You can get InfoTools from http://www.cd-rw.org/software/cdr_software/cdr_tools/nero_info_tool.cfm
ASPI, Advanced SCSI Programming Interface, is the source of enough problems with anything even remotely related to an optical drive. Note that Windows2000 and WindowsXP do NOT come with ASPI installed and many users, just starting to do more than basic activities with their drives are encountering problems left and right. ASPI is one of the simplest things to check for -- it just takes one reboot. For more information regarding ASPI see http://cd-rw.org/articles/archive/aspisetup.cfm . IMPORTANT: when checking the version numbers, all four the version numbers have to match identically otherwise the ASPI is not installed correctly/completely regardless of whatever the checker says (this is especially true for Nero's InfoTools which only checks for the presence of the files rather than matching version numbers). If the above link didn't help, pay a visit to http://www.hazza.dsl.pipex.com/faq.htm#ASPI for a step-by-step guide on getting it to work.
Some older drives (and it seems notebook drives are even more prone to this) are not able to read certain CDRW discs (especially the high-speed 700MB CDRWs). It has nothing to do with the media but just the drive's ability to recognize the media. Really old drives will have problems reading the Multispeed discs (1x-4x RW) and while most of the fairly recent drives can handle those and most of the Highspeed discs (4x-12x) RW. Many people will however encounter problems reading 700MB HighSpeed discs or UltraSpeed discs (24x-48x RW). Maybe a firmware update may provided the additional functionality (visit http://forum.rpc1.org/portal.php for more on firmwares)
If you've got burner problems, what you might need to do is to uninstall the drive from Windows, reboot and let Windows automatically reinstall the device for you. To do so, (1) Control Panel, (2) System, (3) Hardware, (4) Device Manager, (5) Expand the DVD/CD-ROM Drives entry, right click on thr troublesome drive and uninstall it. Now simply reboot and let Windows try and repair itself.
