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been a while since i needed help but this 1 has me stumped. First my DVD burner started to freeze the system when I went to burn a DVD. A cd worked fine. By freeze I mean Nero would sit at "Caching files" and eventually would come up as "not responding." End task and end process wouldnt kill it. DVD drive wouldnt open after this without a restart. Then recently I was installing World of Warcraft and the dirve would be fully spun up (audible) and then it would slow down to almost nothing. Transfer rate would drop, then for the next cd the drive would not open without a restart. I have 3 HD's in this system and 1 would click on and off when it was being accessed heavily. I say OK, well the power supply cant hack it (generic 400w p/s that is about 3 years old). So I replaced it with an Antec Truepower 430w. HD no longer clicks on and off. DVD drive still experiences the same symptoms. So I said "well I've never had luck with TDK drives anyways (this is a TDK drive)". So I went out and bought a new DVDRW drive. Still the same symptoms. I tried changing IDE cables and controllers. Still the same. But now wiht this new drive sometimes it will not even recognize a cd in it. I re-installed the ASPI layer to the most recent version, still the same issue. I'm still getting all the same symptoms. During most software installs off cd the drive spins down and transfers slow then wont open till reboot.

I am totally stumped at this point. Another issue that might be totally unrelated is Windows update wont work. It says I need to enable some setting in IE which is enabled. WU works on another user account. DVD drive has same symptoms no matter what user account.

Any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks. Am I looking at FDISK and reinstall?

have the same problem with mine...only with cds though not dvds works with dvds fine but craps itself if i put in a cd.... i just use my cd drive for cds.

Well you did the same things i would have and your left with a software bug of some kind and a bitch of one too. I would guess that you have problems with nero or some file it uses from windows or aspi.

I found a aspi cleaner you may want try first before nuking your install http://radified.com/ASPI/forceaspi.htm
I lost a few files from aspi and just writing over the old set did NOT cut it for me.
needs to restart after you delete the old aspi files

Why would you need an ASPI layer with XP? I'm running XP with sp1, and I never had an issue burning in XP without installing a separate ASPI layer. I have the following burning software: Nero version 6.x, CDRWIN, Alcohol 120%, DVD Decrypted, etc, and all these programs work fine without installing an ASPI layer.

Have you tried the suspect DVD drive in another unit?

XP has a aspi layer built-in but if it gets F'ed up it causes problems

Well, I did find multiple "extra" drivers for the DVD device. Odd ones that I assume were added by imagedrives and such. So I thought it a good idea to remove the device, and use killbox to delete the files in hopes that windows would reinstall them. Well. My hopes were shattered when I rebooted and it would do nothing but reboot after the winxp logo started to fade in. After hours of trying to fix it i said to hell with it and just reinstalled windows. I did have mucho data on it, so I used partition magic rescue disks (thank god for those) to split up the partition to install windows on 1 of them. The I copied all my data to my new install and deleted the old partition and added that free space to my new install. Worked great. I'm actually burning a dvd as i type this. Note to self, dont install anymore imagedrives. Even better note to self. Dont use killbox to delete drivers.

just an update. fresh install of windows cured the problem

Originally posted by CaterpillarAssassin
just an update. fresh install of windows cured the problem

You'll be amazed at how many problems that fixes...