ASPI32/ Optical Drive?

Hi folks,
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I had a tech out to replace my Lite-On burner and he replaced it with a NEC 3540 plus I have a Plextor 712-A.
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Ever since the replacement I noticed ASPI32 in device manager with a exclamation mark and my two drives would disappear and re-appear when ever they decided to do so.
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I uninstalled ASPI in the device manager and reinstlled ASPI32 4.70 for XP Pro and then I checked the device manager too see if the exclamation mark was gone and it was. I then opened "My Computer" to see if both optical drives were showing up and only the Plextor which is the Primary IDE Master in bios. I opened device manager again and scanned for hardware changes and then the Plextor that was there disappeared, I mean the whole line that says CD-DVD Roms gone. It re-appears randomly. Here and there the NEC will show up also.
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This is so frustrating, I cannot install anything from disk or use any of my bootable disks in order to restore my system if needed.

Thanks,

 

Do both drives show in the BIOS setup?
I wonder if there is a conflict between the drives, for example both set as master/slave? Are they connected with the same cable?

 

Both my drives were always set as Master (the Lite-On & Plextor) and I never had problems before, and yes Wilber the Plextor & NEC were set the same way when it shows up anyway.
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I was in the bios to do another check before this post and I realized by install the new ASPI driver the bios didn't see either drive. When I hit the enter button for Primary Master to see if the either drive was there, only the Plextor (this is also set to boot from CD in first place in boot configuration) was there so I enabled it and the bios re-detected it. I went through the two Masters and two Slaves and no sign of the NEC what so ever.
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That could be the problem ha, both being on Master? I'm going to go back in and check the bios again just to see if anything has changed. I will be back.
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Thanks Wilbernl,

 

The Plextor is set at Primary Master but after I rebooted from doing this it is no longer recognized in windows. The NEC doesn't show up in the bios or windows ATM, but normally it was set Secondary Master.

I always noticed after the NEC was installed when I went to boot configuration priority the NEC has never been listed there as a choice, only the Plextor. Maybe they don't like each other.

 

The BIOS doesn't use any ASPI driver to detect the hardware.

If both optical drives are connected to the same cable, then they should both be configured as cable select, or one should be master and the other should be slave.

 

Woohoo! I finally cleared this mess up. It was a combination of two things.

When I installed the new ASPI drivers it only installed two out of the four files. I found out when I done the ASPI check. Then I installed Force ASPI v1.7 and it installed the other two files to the proper destinations. At this point I still had no sign of the NEC drive so I shut off the computer and opened the case to check the cables and nothing was actually loose. I pushed in the ribbon cable that goes to the MB and I never heard anything snap in. I closed the case and restarted the computer and there was the NEC drive. I rebooted to check to see if the bios picked it up and it was in the bios. That's really strange.

When installing the ASPI drivers there are two files wowpost.ex & winaspi.dl (notice how the extensions are not right) in the very same folder. I renamed those files wowpost_old.exe & winaspi_old.dll because Force ASPI v1.7 installed the proper files wowpost.exe & winaspi.dll and put them in the proper destination.

Also, the system was very unstable after I rebooted after installing these ASPI 4.60 and after I renamed them to old the system is back to normal.

The ASPI layer became corrupt somehow. Just in case anyone runs into the same problem here is where I got my info.

http://aspi.radified.com/

 

Hi Rilla,

Are master slave on the secondary ide cable? Primary should be for HD. I've replaced several drives & never had to install anything, plug & play worked. My master is a Plextor 760A, slave LiteOn 20xxx, I did not chose cable select, but slave. That little jumper is a pain.

Good Luck
Rico