XP SP2 LaCie Lightscribe USB/Firewire DVD+-RW On Sat was doing some video work. Burnt a test DVD (DVD-RW media) and all worked fine. This has been working fine for a long time. Went to burn second test video and received error saying insufficient space on disk. XP now recognized drive as CDRW drive vs DVDRW. Uninstalled hardware. REbooted. Reconnected hardware. XP recognized, reinstalled - sees it now as DVD-RAM drive! Tried several variations on the disable , uninstall etc. approach - still sees it as DVD-RAM. Tried HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\CurrentControlSet\SetControlClass. Key name: {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} Value Data:[Delete all value data from upper and lower filters] Note-Do not delete the key or the multi-string values. Delete only the data values. Exit regedit and reboot. Reconnected drive - Its recognized as DVD-RAM. Any other ideas short of a wipe and reload of the OS?

You may need to play with the upper and lower filters. Look at the link below. If that dowsn't help then Google for Upper & Lower filters. http://www.mcse.ms/message1428182.html

How old is this drive and how much has it been used? If it's more than a year old and has been used a lot, it may be you need to replace the drive. Optical drives don't last forever. Usually the thing that makes them malfunction first is the sleeve bearings in the motor deteriorate to the point the motor can no longer reliably spin at it's fastest speeds, and eventually the drive motor can't even spin at it's minimum 1X speed reliably, or won't spin at all. These things cause XP to detect data errors from the drive, and when the errors exceed a threshold, XP forces the drive into the slower PIO mode. When the drive is in PIO mode, it is not recognized as a burner drive, but as a CDrom or DVDrom drive. If the data errors continue, XP adds lines to the registry that force the drive into PIO mode all the time. Less commonly, optical drives often have two or more lasers, and one of them may burn out or the circuits for one may no longer work correctly. (That could explain a DVDRW drive being detected as as a CDRW drive, since recent drives are "combo" drives that burn both DVDs and CDs). ..... See this: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devic... If the drive connection is in PIO mode, try setting it to DMA if available, save settings, go back in, see if it has changed to something other than PIO. - if it has changed to something other than PIO, the drive should now be recognized properly (you may need to reboot). - If the drive is recognized properly for a short time then is recognized as a DVDrom drive again, try cleaning it's laser lenses with a laser lens cleaning CD, and then re-setting it's connection to DMA if available. - if it is still in PIO mode, XP has added lines in the registry to force it into PIO mode all the time. I could tell you which lines to remove in the registry so that the drive will be able to acheive it's faster modes again, but if the problem that caused XP to detect too many data errors has not been fixed, XP will immediately or in a short time set the drive to PIO mode again. If you haven't touched the drive's data cable since it was last detected properly, chances are high the only solution is to replace the drive. Using a laser lens cleaning CD in the drive, removing the registry lines, and then re-setting it's connection to DMA if available if needed MIGHT work, but chances are high it won't.