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CD R/W driver problem and OS shake down


Kris

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Hello,

This is tentative opening of a topic, if i'm in the wrong forum, then I'll defer to pointers.

The CD R/W drive does not work. This fault deruved from some softyware installation, which has since been removed. Details below.

A week ago, I installed updated driver for my FireGL T2 graphics card (I know it's old, but it works OK), but the update was required to be preinstalled to suit a CAD program called DraftSight by Dasault. It didn't work out, and the unistall was messy with hangs. Also affected was the functionality of SolidWorks, which I have now also uninstalled using Add/Remove Progs.

I'm fairly confident that the graphics driver is back to the version of the original CD that came with the card. It was loaded via the DVD player. To follow, there will need to be HASP dongle driver reinstalled, with which I'm fairly comfartable with.

Once the OS is cleaned up, I can redo the Solidworks and Hasp drivers OK, and won't be inviting Dasault's Draftsight back.

If this shake down is within your realm, then please let me know.

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There's one part that we should be able to deal with:

The CD R/W drive does not work.

A CD drive not working (as you probably already know) can be either a hardware failure or a software problem.

The software problem will occur with a bad install or a bad uninstall of any program that that includes a filter driver for the CD drive.

Fixing the problem used to a skilled operation, involving editing the Registry. However, now there is an automated Microsoft solution which does the same steps automatically.

If you go to the web page: Your CD or DVD drive can't read or write media and click on the Run now button, it should repair the Registry automatically.

If it still does not work, you may have to re-install any of the following:

  • iTunes
  • Nero
  • Roxio Creator
  • Zune

For reference: Microsoft KB article is http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060

.

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Thanks for info.

I went to and ran the auto fix, which initally produced a good result.

The drive could read disc contents, but wouldn't auto start.

Then after a couple of tries manually opening various discs, the drive is again back to not even spinning when a disc is inserted.

The DVD R/W works, but doesn't display the disc's name against its drive letter, and discs won't auto start in either drive.

The tried discs had various content, and known to be in good condition.

Of the listed progs, there's only Itunes, and I wouldn't expect uninstalling iTunes to remove any downloads or history. Am I correct?

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Setting the CD & DVD non-responsiveness aside for the moment, I looked in the Registry / programs / SolidWorks (SW) and Dasault's Draft Sight. (DS)

Now you will have to excuse me if I use some incorect terminology, as I am at my limit of knowhow here, but it looks like the entire set of registry keys for SW remain, despite SW having been uninstalled using Add/Remove programs.

There are a few inconsequential SW remnants in the SW folder in C:/Progams/,

From Dasault's DS uninstall there are also a few fragments in Programs/, and a few keys in the registry - programs section, for example:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareDassault SystemesDraftSightPerfMon

So I ask whether the current discrepancy between SW & DS registry and actual programs should be tidied up before fixing teh CD/DVD faults?

OR, would a reinstall of SW over the top be an alternatively good way to go?

A search in the Registry for 'SolidWo' or 'SldWo', reveals it in many places throughout.

I 've tried rolling back the System Restore, but it wouln't go.

As an alternative to 'fixing' anything, could bits of a full backup made the day before installing the ATI graphics driver update and the DS program be patched back in?

In closing I mention that the Registry seems littered with mentions of many old and uninstalled progs.

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Hello Tarun,

The current 500GB drive was installed in 2008, and has had only moderate use. It hasn't been pounded by loads of CAD or games use. And have recently run Hitachi's inspection utility and W's ChkDsk Auto regarding an MS Auto Update issue (my first entry to this forum). And have just bought SpinRite with view to better maintaining drives, but am still in my apprenticeship on that soft.

My previous post has crossed, so I'll try to keep my replies synced.

And mention that I'm still on XP as my current version of SolidWorks only runs on XP, and I need a £1,500 upgrade to get it compatible with W7 & Vista.

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I would completely avoid Spinrite. A lot of knowledgeable techs see it as snake oil, often doing more harm than good.

Also, I should have clarified. I was asking about the CD/DVD drives. :)

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Thanks for the alternative view on SpinRite. Initially, it'll be used for drives that have died or old ones which live on 'death-row' pending a reformat.

The DVD and CD drives were new 2004, and have been seldom and little used; mostly for installing software. They were fine until the botched / failed installs and uninstalls.

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DjLizard (author of Dial-a-fix) wrote this article on Data Recovery and has Spinrite listed as software to avoid.

It seems unlikely that the cd/dvd drives are bad. I would rerun the Microsoft Fixit and see if it will resolve the issues along with outputting a log file of what happened and how it fixed it.

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Thanks.

I'll give MS Fixit yet another go, I'd run it several times.

Is there a repair facility for CD/DVD drives in the XP installation CD?

Has anyone at Lunarsoft asked GRC dot com to comment on the referred behavior of SpinRite?

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Thanks for info.

I went to and ran the auto fix, which initally produced a good result.

The drive could read disc contents, but wouldn't auto start.

I would treat auto start as a separate problem, as that is the "Auto insert notification feature".

If you are gaining the ability to read CDs/DVDs then losing it again, that may be due to running iTunes. I don't have a free computer to check, but it is very likely that iTunes has a filter driver somewhere in the chain that the Fixit is trying to fix.

.

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  • 2 weeks later...

James Hello,

Please expand on 'running iTunes' I have iTunes Helper diabled on boot, and have to start iTunes if I want it 'running'. Is my use of running the same as yours?

Also, today, I noticed that the HDD drive read/write LED wasn't flashing at all when it should have been. Wires checked OK, and it flashes on boot up. but after doesn't flicker thereon.

Clutching at straws, I swapped the SONY R/W drive for a new and unused PHILIPS 5200 (still boxed) R/W CD ( it was a long ago sales bargin).

It opened the data CD, but won't forget it name. Tried a music CD, but it won't do the music, only the intro video. I checked properties for auto run. Also checked driver, Win said OK, But opted to update from the accompanying CD (NERO). Win cancelled and still said no need to update.

A small improvement... I just tried to save some small files to CD, and it wasn't recognising that a blank had been inserted.

But incidentally, while it was deciding what to do, the drive led flisckered.

I just recap that th eproblem was precipitated by a bad uninstall of Dasault's Draftsight. Until thenthe machine had been OK.

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A bit more explanation on "running iTunes".

Any software that accesses the CD or DVD drive may install drivers (or filter drivers) for the CD/DVD drive. Running the Fixit will remove those, so it can cause some things to break as well as repairing the Registry. As the Microsoft article states, what you normally do is run the Fixit, then run a repair install of any other installed software that did have those drivers installed. Doing it in that order means that the broken Registry is first put back to a clean state, then any installed program that is broken because it has had its extra driver removed from the "chain" (iTunes, Nero, etc.) is reinstalled.

The extra problem, of course, is that we are all assuming that the bad uninstall of Dasault's Draftsight is the cause of all the troubles. Unfortunately, I've never used it.

In an earlier post you noted that the Registry is littered with many entries for old/uninstalled programs. That is quite common and I would not delete them.

The remains are there for many reasons: some programs keep the install or product key used during install. Other programs keep all the custom settings from when they were last used. Other people have a different opinion on cleaning up the Registry, but I feel it is safest to leave well alone.

.

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Thank you James for concise explanation and advice on Registry legacy entries, I'll have another go with Fixit while leaving the 'new' Philips drive in place, for some consistency. Then decide next action dependant on outcome.

Maybe unrelated, I mention further to my observation that the drive activity LED had stopped indicating when it should been (11 Feb), I mention that it has since started flashing in very short single pulses at 1 second intervals (timed using stopwatch). As far as I can tell, nothing coresponding appears in MS ProcessExplorer.

Also, in AV log, I seen many unusual and identical entries for :

?Category: Firewall - Activities

Date & Time,Risk,Activity,Status,Recommended Action,Category

12/02/2012 22:57,Info,"Rule "Default Allow Outbound Bootp" monitored traffic at (255.255.255.255, Port bootps(67) ). Outbound UDP packet.",Detected,No Action Required,Firewall - Activities

So. I'm going to check for malware then come back to CD issue later.

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Following on from last post:

Ran scans with Norton-IS, Norton Power Eraser, MBAM, SuperAntiSpyware, Combofix. No malware found.

HDD LED still blinks 1/sec. Thinks... maybe MOBO battery? New battery (checked voltage first) fitted. LED still blinks.

I think this issue needs resolving, but will now redo the CD Fixit routine again, followed by driver refresh as advised.

While I do that, does anyone have any ideas on the blinking LED?

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Just run MS Fixit again, and all listed issues tested for were ticked green. A music CD placed in the drive was eventually seen after about 20 seconds, but it failed to list CD name, and didn't play it untill double clicked, which launched iTunes UI and the CD music started playing.

Next test, a data CD was inserted, and the name read, but W Explorer refused to forget it, and when another data CD was inserted, the name of the first installed CD remained until the drive 'refreshed'.

Taking this issue together with the blinking LED, and slow responses, I wonder whether it would be simpler to use the Jerremy Clarkson PC Fix Method?

Pending replies with advice or opinion, my next move will be to refit an old cloned drive, to test whether the system works properly; if it does not, then I'll consider which tool in my my mechanical toolbox best fits and break open my piggy bank.

Kris

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Also, in AV log, I seen many unusual and identical entries for :

?Category: Firewall - Activities

Date & Time,Risk,Activity,Status,Recommended Action,Category

12/02/2012 22:57,Info,"Rule "Default Allow Outbound Bootp" monitored traffic at (255.255.255.255, Port bootps(67) ). Outbound UDP packet.",Detected,No Action Required,Firewall - Activities

That doesn't look like malware to me. It looks like your computer asking to be given a network address. Port 67 is not only BootP it is also the port used by DHCP requests. Cut and pasting:-

When a system starts up on a network it must first request an IP address (assume it is not using a static IP address), and it does this by broadcasting a request to the DHCP server:

UDP 0.0.0.0:68 -> 255.255.255.255:67

since the requesting system doesn't have an IP address (why it is asking) it uses 0.0.0.0 and since its new to the network it doesn't know where the DHCP server is, so it broadcasts the request to the entire network (255.255.255.255). On some networks you will see these requests bounce off of your firewall (depending on your provider's network configuration and if your router/firewall logs these requests) ....

Note: text comes from http://www.linklogger.com/UDP67_68.htm

Don't really know why your Anti-Virus/Firewall is logging this at all, except that NIS (Norton Internet Security) has default firewall rules for the Smart Firewall of


Default Allow Inbound Bootp

Default Allow Outbound Bootp

If it did not then your computer would not get a network address from (probably) your router/gateway. Incidentally, I think it would be less confusing if NIS used the more modern name and called the rules:

Default Allow Inbound DHCP

Default Allow Outbound DHCP

I'm not sure what would cause your hard drive light to blink regularly unless you have an HTC (or similar) phone plugged in to your computer. I've seen them blink the hard disk lights regularly, just as you describe, when syncing. It seemed to me to be linked to some incompatibility between the phone syncing software and the Anti-Virus.

For the third of the posts (# 17), does anyone else have any ideas on what to try next with the CD problems?

.

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Thanks James.

Decision time:

I tested the system with the old master HDD from 2008, and it worked OK; noticeably more quickly in fact, and the HDD light flickered and flashed as normal when given tasks, with no pulsing every second. The CD players worked and MS Explorer performed correctly, and apart from it asking for Nero for the new drive (which it didn't get given), they recognised music CD's and data CDs but strangely, with no sound, and wanted Quicktime, which I ignored.

The two current drives in the machine were due to be retired in May (at 4 years old), So I'll skip the fix and retire them early. (disc 2 was for running backups) (Sound returned with reconnection of current drive).

My intent for next system is to have a smallish drive for the OS and all the data on the slave (500GB-1TB), uness otherwise advised.

I need to use XP for my 2004 version of Solid Works (it does what I want brilliantly).

Question::

So, going forward, after installing MS XP Sp2, should I immediately update to XP Sp3, and then let it update itself before doing new hardware drivers etc?

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If you are behind some form of firewall, provided by your broadband router/gateway for example, then you can do it either way round.

Personally, I would apply SP3 first, then missing hardware drivers, then let Windows update itself. It is going to take quite some time for Windows to update itself, because there are somewhere about 80 to 100 updates to apply since SP3 came out almost 4 years ago.

.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thank you James.

Before replacing the drive and mindful of your advice about iTunes, endoresed by Elmannen, I uninstalled iTunes; the other applications hadn't been installed.

The result was that the CD R/W now worked and could write, but was unreliable to the point that a reboot was needed to re-enable recording. The DVD could read and write to CD but not write to DVD; it could also play DVDs after double clicking. So, the system, although creaky, now seems good enough to archive just in case it's urgently needed again at a time when the last thing wanted would be another problem.

So unless you have advice for polishing the CD & DVD remedy further, my next move will be to change the HDDs over the weekend and reinstall from scratch, after which I'll report back with a happy result or a plea for help.

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Just a thought, but also be sure the DVDs are DVD writable and you may also want to try ImgBurn. It's a free software for burning things like ISO files to CD/DVD media.

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No naked downloading- OK -understood! Will were a FW enabled Router, but seriously, would reinstalling AV&PC-Fire-Wall after SP3, be an additonal protection, before commencing with updates?

Re DVD drive not recording video: in its properties panes, there's only a tick box labelled "Enable CD recording on this drive". Should there also be a tick box for enabling DVD recording?

An Internet search for the drive, a Sony model 'DVD RW-DW-D22A', yielded that the media supported by it were (claimed) to be: DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+R DL, DVD-ROM, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW; and that Sony were involved with the development of the DVD+R format in 2002.

The drive and its drivers cd-rom were made around 2004, and the test dics just used were new TDK type DVD+R, which aught to have been compatible. The drive can read prerecorded ordinary DVDs.

Would ImgBurn replace or augment the existing drivers?

And my paranoia department asks, what do sofware distributors get from giving out free drivers like ImgBurn?

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