Weird-assed CD problem

Shadowhawk · Post by **Shadowhawk** » 2004-03-30 01:18am

I've had a strange problem with my system for a few months now.

Windows does not like recognizing that I've inserted a new CD. I put in, say, disc1 of some game, and run the install, it asks for disc2, I put it in, and XP still thinks disc1 is in the drive. Same label, same contents (if you try to open a file, you're greeted with a blank document or an error). The only way I can get it to finally recognize a new disc is apparently to make sure all Explorer windows are not displaying the drive's contents, run the command prompt, open up the drive door, try to list the directory of the drive, and when it comes up with an error, then put in the new disc and close the drive door and hit retry. This works maybe 30-60% of the time. It seems to happen less often if I don't use the command prompt.

It does not do this when it comes to burning CDs--Nero has no trouble recognizing that a new disc is in the drive.

I just resigned myself to the idea that it's a problem with the drive itself.
But then I installed DaemonTools. And it does the same damned thing. I try to mount a new image, and it doesn't recognize that the drive contents have changed! I have to 'Eject' the image and load a new one, and that only works about half the time. Clearly, the fault isn't with my CDRW.

What the hell could be causing this, and what might fix it, short of reinstalling XP?

Comosicus · Post by **Comosicus** » 2004-03-30 03:55am

Try a scan for viruses or for spyware/adware. Also check for the latest updates for windows.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2004-03-30 04:56am

Disabling Auto-Insert Notification (on the drive in the Hardware Manager, accessible from System Properties) might do the trick. It sounds like WIndows' polling of the drive got screwed up.

Shadowhawk · Post by **Shadowhawk** » 2004-03-30 03:52pm

Comosicus wrote:Try a scan for viruses or for spyware/adware. Also check for the latest updates for windows.

What do you take me for, an amateur?

I clean up crap like that every day at work.
My home system is utterly clean of such things. And I run Opera and Calypso for browsing and email, so I'm in virtually no danger of such things in the first place.

Crayz9000 wrote:Disabling Auto-Insert Notification (on the drive in the Hardware Manager, accessible from System Properties) might do the trick. It sounds like WIndows' polling of the drive got screwed up.

I'm fairly sure it is disabled already. I've always hated autorun.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2004-03-30 05:39pm

Shadowhawk wrote:
Crayz9000 wrote:Disabling Auto-Insert Notification (on the drive in the Hardware Manager, accessible from System Properties) might do the trick. It sounds like WIndows' polling of the drive got screwed up.
I'm fairly sure it is disabled already. I've always hated autorun.

Auto-Insert Notification is different from Autorun. You can disable Autorun using TweakUI or a Registry hack; you disable AIN from the Hardware Manager.

Basically, AIN is a lower-level thing than Autorun. Autorun has to do with Explorer. AIN has to do with the kernel IIRC.

Shadowhawk · Post by **Shadowhawk** » 2004-03-30 09:38pm

Crayz9000 wrote:
Shadowhawk wrote:
Crayz9000 wrote:Disabling Auto-Insert Notification (on the drive in the Hardware Manager, accessible from System Properties) might do the trick. It sounds like WIndows' polling of the drive got screwed up.
I'm fairly sure it is disabled already. I've always hated autorun.
Auto-Insert Notification is different from Autorun. You can disable Autorun using TweakUI or a Registry hack; you disable AIN from the Hardware Manager.

Basically, AIN is a lower-level thing than Autorun. Autorun has to do with Explorer. AIN has to do with the kernel IIRC.

Well, looks like I fixed it, but the answer was completely opposite of yours.

I chaned the 'Autoplay' value in HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CDRom from 0 to 1. Apparently, having autoplay disabled like that means that your system doesn't bother to send appropriate media change notifications to the shell (or something), instead of just turning off the "What do you want to do with this CD?" shit.

Go Microsoft!