My DVD drives arn't detected

[Jeero]

Yesterday while playing Far Cry my computer froze up, I rebooted and when it came back on it said my two drives weren't there. It fixed itself on its own after a couple of reboots. It worked well for about an hour and froze up again and the same thing happened except this time it wouldn't fix itself with a reboot; but I was able to fix it by scanning for new hardware. It ran well for a while and then froze up again except this time neither scanning or rebooting would work. I reinstalled my DVD drivers and that brought the drives back. Today it froze again, drives undetected, and now nothing I try fixes it.

I've tried scanning for viruses and spyware and my computer has never actually been connected to the internet, so I don't see how it could have caught anything in the first place. I?m running a slipstreamed sp2 version of windows XP and I'd try to reinstall it if my drives worked. All my temperatures seem pretty good. One thing I?ve noticed is that when the drives are not detected my system runs faster and I get no lockups. Also, it freezes randomly; when booting, when windows loads, during Far Cry, Photoshop, and just when idling.

So does anyone know of a software related solution? I've had to rip this thing apart 4 times over the past couple of weeks and I'm not looking forward to doing it again.

My system is:
Athlon 64 3500
MSI neo2 platinum motherboard
Pioneer 108b dvd writer
Liteon DVD drive
Geforce 6800 GT

 

[vskagentsmith]

Well the first thing that comes to mind is what kind of power supply are you running on that thing?

The only reason I ask is because on my current system I've had issues with my harddrive and/or CD-ROM losing power under high loads (especially games), once the harddrive loses power I have to power and unpower it rapidly to get the disk spinning fast enough that it doesn't kill the voltage when I get it powered up, then sometimes the system'll pick up, otherwise it freezes, then I have to get them configured in the BIOS again for them to work.

Might not be your problem, but I can't be for sure.

 

[Jeero]

My power supply is a antec truepower550 500W.

 

[vskagentsmith]

Guess I shot myself in the foot with that one, oh well, heh, it was just a toss up. Hope someone has an answer for ya, I'd like to know myself.

 

[Jeero]

Hey, any help is appreciated. Glad to know someone out there cares, heh.

 

[Uncle Bob]

are your drives SATA type? what make/model, RAID or Non-Raid

 

[rile0161]

Probably a stupid question, but are the drives listed by your bios boot up screen every time?

 

[Jeero]

My hard drives a Seagate 200gb barracuda SATA drive.

Edit: No the drives are listed at startup.

 

[rile0161]

When you say you re-installed the DVD drivers do you mean you re-installed the IDE drivers for your motherboard? I'd try doing that if you didn't, possibly just re-install all of the nvidia system drivers altogether.

 

[Jeero]

I tried to reinstall the system and IDE drivers but unfortunately that didn't seem to do anything. Also I think I was mistaken in calling them "DVD drivers"; what the site called them was firmware.

Thanks for the replies.

 

[Big Lar]

What do you use for Burning software?
Do you have aspi installed on your system, and can you check that thru your burning software?
Are you running XP? And if so, have you tried Checkdisk yet?
In Device manager, do the drives appear/vanish ..What?
Is your system stable, as in no other BSOD's?

 

[Jeero]

For burning software I use Nero.

I don't really know what aspi is or how to check it. I googled it and it says Nero has aspi files.

I?m running windows XP home slipstreamed with service pack 2, and I tried check disk and a defrag.

In device manager the drives aren?t listed. The section for DVD drives isn?t present at all unless I run Daemon tools and set up a fake one. It freezes and then they disappear and I haven't been able to get them back since the last freeze.

My system was stable up until yesterday when all the freeze ups started.

 

[Big Lar]

OK, We are getting somewhere First off, what version of nero are you running? Reason I ask is SP2 has issues with certain versions.
Next, Path = Start/Programs/Nero/Nero toolkit/Nero Info tool.
Once that opens,( If it does),Look on the headers, and look for aspi. Clik it, you can toggle between Nero's aspi, and the System aspi. At least 1 of them should be good. Also, clik the configuration tab, as well as others, and see what gives, as to what is there, and what is missing, and or corrupt.

 

[Jeero]

I have the Nero 6 ultra edition. It says in the ASPI tab that ASPI is not installed at the bottem, but I do have the option of system and nero ASPI. Under configuration I dont think I see anything missing besides my two dvd drives and nothing is listed as corrupt. Also the Daemon tools drive is listed under D347PRT SCSI Controller as a ID 0 (0):Generic DVD-ROM 1.0 and under it Autorun on is listed. Another thing I've never mentioned was that on start up the Daemon drive is listed as my only DVD drive, I never thought much of it but it might mean something.

 

[Big Lar]

Originally posted by: Jeero
I have the Nero 6 ultra edition. It says in the ASPI tab that ASPI is not installed at the bottem, but I do have the option of system and nero ASPI. Under configuration I dont think I see anything missing besides my two dvd drives and nothing is listed as corrupt. Also the Daemon tools drive is listed under D347PRT SCSI Controller as a ID 0 (0):Generic DVD-ROM 1.0 and under it Autorun on is listed. Another thing I've never mentioned was that on start up the Daemon drive is listed as my only DVD drive, I never thought much of it but it might mean something.

You refer to the Dameon drive, Is this a Virtual Drive by chance?
Also did you toggle between system and Nero Aspi, and if so are both Not installed? if so, that may be your problem.
Which actual version of nero, 6.3125/6.6001? ETC

 

[Jeero]

It is a virtual DVD drive.

My Nero version is 6.3.1.25.

Nero ASPI wasn't enabled but when I did it said that ASPI is installed and working properly. However I can't seem to make the Nero ASPI the default selection. Every time I open the infotool the system ASPI is listed.

 

[Big Lar]

It dosn't matter which is Default, as long as 1 is active. I think the virtual drive is the culprit. Try DVDShrink, and dump the virtual drive.

 

[Jeero]

Last time I fixed the missing drive problem by installing the firmware I unmounted the drive and uninstalled daemon tools. The next day it froze up again. I'll give the DVDShrink a try though.

 

[Big Lar]

This time, when you uninstall the dameon, pop in the reg, and delete all the damaon headings.

 

[Jeero]

Can the DVDShrink do that or should I still go in manually?

 

[Big Lar]

Dvdshrink is merely a decoding tool, but prefered by many. The virtual drive, as best i remember from my readings, has major issues with modern OS's, ie XP and maybe 2k. Try a basic uninstall first, and chkdisk of windows on a reboot, and see if the prob ensues, if all is well, you are in good shape, if not, post back and I along with others will help you weed thru the reg.

 

[Jeero]

Well, I'm running a disk check right now. Really hoping this does it.

Thanks for all your help, really. Its kinda hard to convey it with text but I really appreciate it, heh.

 

[Big Lar]

Your welcome, and i am happy I was able to help at all

 

[Jeero]

No good the drives are still gone. How do I go about getting rid of those registry keys?

Edit: Poking around the registry I couldn't find the anything about the Daemon tools; but I did find three drives in the IDE folder. My two dvd drives and a third DiskST3200822AS 3.01 drive could this be something I shouldn't have?

 

[Big Lar]

Could be, that is if you only have 2 ide drives installed.
Before you change anything in the registry, a good idea is to back the reg up. Open regedit,File, and Export. Give it a name, and it should send it to Mydocs.
Then you can edit the reg.