DVD Writer plays audio CD, but not DVD / CD-Rom / DVD-Ram.

[gudguy]

I am stumped on this one and hope that you can help me
with this frustrating issue. Being new to DVD (and for
that matter CD-Drives) I haven't even tried burning until
I can get past this problem.

Drive Installation History:

In the beginning there was:
CD-ROM: Drive E: AOpen (Master) (Sec. IDE)
CD-Writer: Drive F: LG GCE 8481B (Slave) (Sec. IDE)
No problems with either drive (that I knew of.)

Then I was quickly intrigued by home movie authoring so I
removed the CD-ROM drive and installed:
DVD-Writer: Drive E: LG GCS 4040B (Master) (Sec. IDE)
CD-Writer: Drive F: LG GCE 8481B (Slave) (Sec. IDE)

Next, since the CD Writer still recognizes CD-Rom's (and
plays audio CD's), I loaded PowerDVDXP 4.0 (and, I assume,
the DVD Decoder)

Windows XP correctly identifies the hardware and the
drives are indicated in the "My Computer" screen. I have
tried uninstalling and reinstalling by the device manager
and have also set both Drive controllers to DMA mode. I
have even played with the BIOS settings: Auto detect
drives, etc. Nothing seemed to have an effect on the
following;

PROBLEM: (or opportunity for those optimists in the crowd):

DVD Writer will play audio CD's, but it locks up when
trying to read a DVD / CD-Rom or the supplied DVD-Ram
disc.

Symptoms: Drive light blinks, hard-drive light
blinks, "disc detected icon" on end of mouse pointer
indicates, approximately ten to twenty seconds later the
drive light speeds up and stays in a "locked" mode with
the CPU seemingly consumed by this task.

I have searched many forums and and none have provided a
link to a similar problem. It may be something simple that
I have missed, but I am overwhelmed at the possible
failure modes. Decoder, XP Registry, BIOS.

Please help, I really would like to give this medium a try.


COMPUTER INFORMATION:

Operating System: WinXP SP1
CPU Speed: AMD K6 500MHz
Harddrive space: 13GB Quantum (Master) (Pri. IDE), 40GD WD
(Slave) (Pri. IDE)
RAM Memory: 128 MB SDRam - PC100
Video Card: JATON 3DForce4 MX440-8X
Motherboard: ASUS P5A (ATX)
CD-ROM: N/A
DVD-ROM: N/A
CD Writer: LG GCE 8481B (Slave) (Sec. IDE)
DVD Writer: LG GCS 4040B (Master) (Sec. IDE)
Capture Card: N/A, Thru Sony Camcorder
Standalone DVD Player: N/A
Sound Card: Sound Blaster PCI512
Fire Wire: ADS 1394 PCI Card (Pyro Basic DV)

 

[Guest]

I may have just eliminated the drive as a problem, but I
still need help.

I downloaded dvdshrink (nice, simple looking, program)
that I found suggested for a problem in another forum.

Next, with the drive empty (so it isn't blinking madly
away and crushing my CPU)
I tried looking into my drive, loaded a DVD when prompted,
and after a time got the following message .

"The volume does not contain a recognized file system."
"Please make sure that all required file system drivers
are loaded and that the volume is not corrupted."
"Please insert disk into the selected drive."

Ok, so this leads to the following questions.

What are the system drivers that the message speaks of ?
Where would I find them on my system ?
How do I load the required file system drivers ?
How did I get into this mess ?

PS: I loaded the bundled BHA burning and authoring
softwares (Bgold 5, B'sClip, NeoDVD), perhaps that is
where my fault lies ? I assume Win XP does not have the
required file system drivers resident in it's software !?