ASPI problems / DVD locking up

[Azathoth]

Greetings

Appropriately enough, my first post on this forum is one with a problem. Although I am a complete newbie when it comes to DVD ripping, I've been copying CD's for several years, so I like to thing I at least know a few things about what I'm doing. Maybe someone can help me with this problem.

Currently, here's my hardware setup:

Win98
External SCSI CD Burner
Liteon 16x DVD-Rom (Secondary Slave)
Maxtor 33.8g HD (Secondary Master)
Maxtor 6.4g HD (Primary Master)

I got the Liteon Drive in the other day and hooked it up. Installed the Power DVD software and watched a DVD, everything worked well. Checked out to see if my copying softs worked with the DVD-Rom (since I had to remove my old CD-Rom to make space for it). It worked fine in CDRWin. Completely locked up with EZCD v.3, and Nero 5.0.0.9 only detected my SCSI burner, and not the DVD drive.

Now, since I first hooked the drive up I've installed quite a few different versions of Nero and EZCD several times, so I can't exactly say in what order I've tried things. I know that any version of Nero above 5.0.0.9 locks up after it first comes on (it didn't do this before with my CD-Rom, since at one point I did have Nero 5.5 on the system) and none of them would work. Only my original installation of Nero 5.0.0.9 would work, and it doesn't detect the DVD as a reader. I installed EZCD 4 and it did detect the DVD and worked fine with it. I avoided EZCD 5 since I tried it months ago and it caused ASPI conflicts with CDRwin and Nero.

I tried Smartripper last night, and it seemed to work ok. When it first started, it tried to use ASPI but was unsuccessful, then tried WinIO (may be wrong about the exact message) and did rip a DVD.

Got up this morning and had to copy a regular CD. EZCD 4 did not detect my DVD. Reinstalled, and sometime during it I got an error message about a ODBC conflict. After reinstallation, everything seemed to work ok, and the CD copied fine.

Now, anytime I try to use the DVD drive with a DVD in it, it locks up. It locks up when you hit play in Power DVD, it locks up if you right click and choose properties within WinExplorer, and it locks up at the beinging of Smartripper (when it attempts to use ASPI).

I was able to use the -SN flag (no ASPI calls) in Smartripper just now, and ripped a DVD and burned it to VCD fine. However, unless I specify this flag Smartripper locks up.

I have downloaded ASPI layer 4.60 and installed it, and everything still locks up.

I'm thinking that with un/reinstalling all these versions of copying software has screwed my ASPI up, so anytime it's called upon to do something it locks the computer up.

Any suggestions at all on what to do?

[Savant]

OK, if you think that your ASPI is screwed, you may want to try this utility. ForceASPI

download: http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom/cd_utils_5.shtml#ForceASPI

Keep in mind this is UNSUPPORTED software. It bypasses the normal setup routine for the installation of the ASPI layer, but I have heard many peope had success with it. I used it on my Win98se system because I was having problems too. The regular install didn't work but this did. Then I updated to a later version and it still kept working.

Once you have done that, download ASPICHK from the adaptec website and see how it looks.

download: http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/support/supporteditorial.html?prodkey=ASPI_Layer_Upkeep

Try that and see if it helps..

Regards,

Savant

[Azathoth]

Tried it, and no dice. Uninstalled every CDR program on my computer, then tried reinstalling the new 4.7 ASPI layer on Adaptec's website. That didn't do anything. I then tried ForceASPI, and ripped out my existing layer and installed the new one. CheckASPI says everything is installed and working properly, but it's still messed up.

It only happens when you insert a DVD into the drive. Regular CDRoms and VCD's are fine. I can look at the properties of VCDs, and play them in PowerDVD till I'm blue in the face; but the minute I try a DVD it locks up.

[Savant]

What OS do you have? Have you disabled auto-insert notification on the DVD? Perhaps this is a problem of competing programs wanting to launch when you insert a DVD. Perhaps what's happening is that you have a program open to watch the DVD, and then when you insert the DVD another program tries to launch the DVD but the resource is in use. Follow what I'm saying..? Long shot, but what the heck right...

You should disable auto-insert notification AND I would suggest then next time you have the case open you swap your drives around so that you place the DVD burner on it's own IDE channel. Anytime you place a CD/DVD player on the same channel as a HD you will lower the speed of that HD down to that of the CD/DVD player.

Try the above and see if that helps...

Regards,

Savant