System (details below) includes a Plextor 708A DVD/CD drive. After running nicely for a couple of years, suddenly the OS is apparently unable to see media in the drive. The bios recognizes the drive and bios routines (as used by BootitNG, for example) read and write to the media as expected. Plextools communicates with the drive and all Plextools tests, including transfer rates, complete successfully. However, while the W2K recognizes the drive in the sense of assigning it a drive letter, it cannot see media in the drive. Autorun does not work, using MyComputer/WinExplorer to access the drive results in "Please insert a disk into drive F:", my usual file manager (Dopus) gives "An error occurred reading folder. The parameter is incorrect (87). All this, of course, with valid, readable media in the drive. System: W2K SP4, P4 3.2, 1GB, Plextor 708A. Any ideas appreciated. I'm tearing my hair out, and can't afford to loose much more! :-)

Have you installed ANY software just prior to this happening?

What media are you testing with? I would suggest some sort of commercial media, like an install disk from a software package, and try it out in another sytem first. If you have been testing with a disk you burned something may have happened to it, or tyhe media may not be compatible with this drive.

Thanks for your replies, guys. In answer to your questions: 1) No, no new software was installed at the point at which the problem started. Nor any other system config change. 2) The problem shows up with any CD/DVD, home-brew or commercial. And note that utilities such as BootitNG and Plextools, which don't use the windows CD drivers, read and write just fine to the same discs that windows can't see, which says to me that this is not a hardware or media problem. I have reinstalled the windows CD drive driver. No help. Thanks.

Do you have WinXP autoupdates enabled? If so, an update may have caused this issue. This may have something to do with the ASPI filters. There are several different approaches that you can try. Look here for some info and also try MSoft Knowledge Base. http://aspi.radified.com/

Thanks for the thoughts on the ASPI layer. That should have occurred to me, but didn't. I'll pursue that (via the referenced web site) over the weekend, as time permits, and report back later. Thanks again...

Take a look over here and also go to Adaptec's site to gather info on this problem. I believe your problem is with your ASPI Layer Drivers. http://aspi.radified.com/