CD/DVD drives not recognizing discs immediately.

[Poppa_Meth]

I just recently started installing Silent Hill 2 PC version on my machine and when it prompts for the next disc I insert the disc and it cannot find it. I have to eject and reload it several times before it sees it. If I open My Computer during this I can see that it is still listing the previous disc instead of the current disk. I though maybe it was a problem with the drive but it does it on my DVD-ROM, my DVD Burner and a CD burner I have in an external Firewire enclosure. I'm not sure exactly when this started happening. I did a complete reformat and reinstall of XP with SP2 included about 2 monthes ago but this is the first time I've notice this happen. I don't think it's SP2 related. I'm thinking it may have something to do with my firewire enclosures. Just recently I had the one with my secondary HDD in it give me some issues. It said something about a Security file being corrupt and I lost all data on the drive. I had to quick format it and it's working fine since then. I then added the enclosure with the CD Burner not long after. However, even on a fresh startup and neither of these devices on the drives behave the same way. Also of note the drives are both listed in My Computer as CD Drives though they are both DVD. I don't recall if that's normal though since they use Windows generic drivers. When I turn on the External CD Burner it listes as a CD-RW drive though. Any ideas on what to try is appreciated. It's gotten a bit annoying.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

my PC has recently started doing this too
but I don't have any drives connected via FireWire
you must have more patience than I, because saying that "It's gotten a bit annoying." seems like a major understatement to me....

[Poppa_Meth]

Well I can still get most things so work okay so it hasn't been a big hassle (YET). I can get SH2 to install after repeated attempts but then when I go to play it it says no disc found in drive (inserts string of what looks like a hardrive address to me). But then you can click continue and it plays okay. I was just testing the game on my PC as I bought it for a friend not me and I have the PS2 version, so that isn't bothering me too much. But now I'm worried about other games I may install, not that I play too many PC games.

[Poppa_Meth]

Now I just checked My Computer again and the drives are listed as they should be. I'll have to try installing SH2 again and see what happens. Do you have Alcohol 120% installed or Daemon Tools by chance? I just checked the emulation setting in Alcohol to find they are defaulted to hide disc type to view all discs ad CDs. Maybe this is part of my problem.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

yes, I have both programs installed
i'll have to look at that...

[Poppa_Meth]

evidently that wasn't the problem. I tried installing SH2 again and same issues. I'm going to test other games and see what happens.

[Poppa_Meth]

We'll I tried unistalling the drives in device manager and rebooting. But still the same problems. I tried other discs and they seem to load fine. SH2 is Securom protected so maybe that's causing some issues. However it doesn't do it on other computers I've installed it on. I put in my WinXP SP2 disc (slipstreamed) and ran sfc /scannow and it prompted me for the disc every few minutes. I had to click retry and it continued right on along. I have no idea what is going on here. I wish I knew exactly when it started.

[Poppa_Meth]

another update. I uninstalled the secondary IDE channel and rebooted. It found both drives and then the IDE channel but gave an error that it couldn't set up the IDE channel correctly. So I unistalled it again and rebooted. This time all detected fine. However I checked that IDE and everything was listed in PIO mode. Usually it detects in UDMA in my experience. So I manually chose DMA and rebooted. Then both drives were listed in UDMA 2, which is normal. Same issues though. I also found that my ASPI layer was screwed up somehow. I had two listings for 4.6 and two for 4.71. I killed it with Force ASPI and rebooted, Installed with Force ASPI and rebooted only to find that the ASPI didn't install correctly. So I tried again and now its all back to 4.6 like I wanted. Sounds like something is seriously screwed up in my system. I'm going to post an image in a minute of my Hardware manager and see if anything looks off to you guys.

[Poppa_Meth]

Here is the Device Manager snapshot. I've expanded everything I thought might be pertainant.

[Poppa_Meth]

I ran Microsofts Autoplay Fix tool and fixed a few policy issues, but SH2 still has the same problems installing and playing. This time my DVD-ROM drive completely disappeared from My Computer after an eject and reappeared after inserting a new disc. I'm totally confused.

[mattyboy]

Where did you get the auto play tool from? I havent heard of it before.

[Poppa_Meth]

I found a link to it on some tweak website but have since searched for autoplay repair on Microsoft.com and found the official download.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

whose ASPI are you using? Adaptec's?

[Shadow57]

Maybe I didn't correctly follow this entire thread but I
recently posted in another thread which might be similar.

Here is the link...

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=259200

[Shadow57]

This link might help with what Xylob mentioned.

I didn't read all of it because our problem has always
been with the CD filters.

http://aspi.radified.com/

[Poppa_Meth]

Using Force ASPI, which has always worked fine for me before.

I'll check those links shortly.

[Poppa_Meth]

Unfortunatley I don't think its ASPI related. I've found my ASPI configured oddly, with two being listed as 4.6 and 2 listed as 4.71.2 but I've used ForceASPI to get then all back to 4.6 now. I do have an adaptec Firewire card if perhaps that could be causing an issue.

[Poppa_Meth]

Here is the log file from Microsofts Autofix.

AutoFix [V5.2.3790.67]
Time [2005-03-01 21:19:29]
Microsoft Windows Version [5.1 (Service Pack 2) <2600>]

Test [The Shell Hardware Detection service is running.] - Instance [N/A]:
Result [AutoStart Setting]: OK
Result [The Shell Hardware Detection service is running.]: OK

Test [Policies] - Instance [E:\, Drive Type: 5]:
Result [HKCU\...\Policies!NoDrives]: OK {Absent}
Result [HKCU\...\Policies!NoDriveAutorun]: OK {Absent}
Result [HKCU\...\Policies!NoDriveTypeAutorun]: OK {Present}
Result [HKLM\...\Policies!NoDrives]: OK {Absent}
Result [HKLM\...\Policies!NoDriveAutorun]: OK {Absent}
Result [HKLM\...\Policies!NoDriveTypeAutorun]: OK {Present}
Result [Driver level policies]: OK {
HKLM\...\Services\cdrom!Autorun (Present) <Allows>
HKLM\...\Services\cdrom\Parameters!Autorun (Absent) <Allows>
HKLM\System\CCS\Enum\...!AlwaysEnable (Absent) <Not set>
HKLM\System\CCS\Enum\...!AlwaysDisable (Absent) <Not set> }

Test [Drive Notification] - Instance [E:\, Drive Type: 5]:
Result [Legacy Notification]: Problems
Result [AutoPlay V2 Notification]: Problems {
Service (Silent)
Shell (Deaf) }
>> Repair << [Legacy AutoPlay Event]
Step: No steps to take.
Result: This AutoPlay setting cannot be fixed. Either the device is malfunctioning, or the wizard cannot determine the problem.
>> Repair << [Autoplay V2 Event]
Step: No steps to take.
Result: This AutoPlay setting cannot be fixed. Either the device is malfunctioning, or the wizard cannot determine the problem.

>> Required action: The wizard found problems but cannot fix them -> None

[Poppa_Meth]

Update!!
I uninstalled Blindwrite and now my drive seems to behave normally. I have inserted the SH2 discs multiple times and the drives seem to refresh fine. I'll try actually installing the game again when I have more time and see what happens. I was running the latest version of BW by the way in case anyone else is having this problem.

[Poppa_Meth]

maybe I was wrong. Still noticing some issues. I ripped a DVD and the drive still thinks it's there despite 4 ejects.

[ViRaL1]

maybe I was wrong. Still noticing some issues. I ripped a DVD and the drive still thinks it's there despite 4 ejects.

I get that sometimes. No idea what causes it, or how to correct it. I just live with it.

[Poppa_Meth]

The SH2 CDs still refresh fine. I've uninstalled Alcohol 120% Blindwrite and CloneCD and removed the lower filter set for ELBY. I think BW was the kicker though. I just happend to open up a menu for it that had tools to unfreeze a drive and refresh drives, which got me wondering why such a menu would be there unless maybe the program is known to cause such issues. I never really used BW anyway. I'll just reinstall alcohol and leave it at that. Clone CD isn't that great anymore either.