Panasonic LF-D521U DVD-RAM/-R/-RW Drive

[Jason Stevens]

Hello, I hope someone here can help me. I purchased the above drive
yesterday, and so far I cannot get it to work properly. It is supposed to
show up as two devices in the device manager, one in the cdrom section and
another in the disk drives section. However it is not showing up under disk
drives at all. The troubleshooting guide that came with the drive says that
if this happens the drivers are not properly installed. In the properties
under cdrom it says it is using Microsoft drivers from two years ago, and
this is the only thing I can get it to use. I've downloaded the latest
drivers from Panasonic and they appeared to install okay, but after
rebooting it is still not working. In Windows Explorer only one drive is
showing for it instead of two, and it appears as a normal CD-ROM drive. If I
try to use the Panasonic format or disk check utilities it says the drive is
in use. Is there a way to force XP to stop using it's own drivers and accept
the Panasonic driver? Here is the driver information from the device
manager:

Matshita DVD-RAM LF-D521
Driver Provider: Microsoft
Driver Date: 7/1/2001
Driver Version: 5.1.2530.0
Digital Signer: Microsoft Windows XP Publisher

Thanks

 

[Mikey]

Hi;

WHO the h*ck told you it's supposed to appear in the DISK DRIVE section?

Only HARD DISKS and USB FlashDrives (and/or equivalents) get added there.

You drive got added in the CD/CD-Rom Drives.
That is proper and not open to discussion.
You get ONE drive added per UNIT be it a multi-purpose "CD/CD R/RW/DVD-Rom
R-R+/RW" or a plain CD or DVD.

If it was properly detected and thus identified is the question.

Double click the drive and check the properties of the unit in the
CD/CD-Rom Section. Verify if it is enabled and working properly....according
to XP.

If it is the problem then probably stems from the fact that the old drive it
just replaced was NOT taken out of the system beforehand like it should have
been.

1- The old drivers should have been deleted.
2- The old drive should have been disabled befor you made the "move".

My advice:
Delete the current drivers and
Disable the "new"
in ONE sweeping move.

SHUT DOWN.

Put the "old" back in
Let it be detected and its drivers activated.
Delete the newly reinstalled drivers and diable the "old".

Shut down again and try the 'new".
Odds are in your favor this will fix your problem and your new version of
its drivers should "catch"...but still: only ONE drive per unit and in the
CD/CD-Rom section where it belongs.

Mikey

 

[Jason Stevens]

Panasonic did, and it is. A DVD-RAM is considered a removable disk. It is
also a normal DVD-RW and should appear under the cdrom devices section, and
this part does show up correctly. So yes, there are supposed to be two
devices for this drive in the device manager.

This drive did not replace an older drive so there should be no old drivers
to delete, and since they are generic cd-rom drivers provided by Microsoft I
can't delete them anyway. I have tried removing the drive from device
manager and redetecting it, but it always uses the MS drivers instead of the
Pansonic. I'm going to try doing a clean intall of XP and see how that goes.

Thanks very much for your reply though

 

[mame]

I have this drive on Windows ME, which does list the drive in 2 places. If I'm reading the manual correctly (p. 54), it appears that for WinXP, only 1 instance will occur. It should show up as drive D - DVD multidrive.

I also had to uninstall my Roxio packet writing software and to revert back to the Windows aspi. After that the drive works beautifully.
Anne

| Hello, I hope someone here can help me. I purchased the above drive
| yesterday, and so far I cannot get it to work properly. It is supposed to
| show up as two devices in the device manager, one in the cdrom section and
| another in the disk drives section. However it is not showing up under disk
| drives at all. The troubleshooting guide that came with the drive says that
| if this happens the drivers are not properly installed. In the properties
| under cdrom it says it is using Microsoft drivers from two years ago, and
| this is the only thing I can get it to use. I've downloaded the latest
| drivers from Panasonic and they appeared to install okay, but after
| rebooting it is still not working. In Windows Explorer only one drive is
| showing for it instead of two, and it appears as a normal CD-ROM drive. If I
| try to use the Panasonic format or disk check utilities it says the drive is
| in use. Is there a way to force XP to stop using it's own drivers and accept
| the Panasonic driver? Here is the driver information from the device
| manager:
|
| Matshita DVD-RAM LF-D521
| Driver Provider: Microsoft
| Driver Date: 7/1/2001
| Driver Version: 5.1.2530.0
| Digital Signer: Microsoft Windows XP Publisher
|
| Thanks
|
|
|

 

[Jason Stevens]

I removed the DirectCD component of Easy CD Creator and rebooted. Windows
said it found new hardware and it now detects it as a DVD-RAM drive. The
Panasonic format and disk check utilities now seem to work fine and I can
write to my discs with no trouble it seems. I guess it is not compatible
with the Roxio packet writing software. In my copy of the manual it says
that it should still appear as two devices even in XP but they may have
changed that since it was printed. Anyway I'm happy as long as it's working.

Thanks for your help

I have this drive on Windows ME, which does list the drive in 2 places. If
I'm reading the manual correctly (p. 54), it appears that for WinXP, only 1
instance will occur. It should show up as drive D - DVD multidrive.

I also had to uninstall my Roxio packet writing software and to revert back
to the Windows aspi. After that the drive works beautifully.
Anne

| Hello, I hope someone here can help me. I purchased the above drive
| yesterday, and so far I cannot get it to work properly. It is supposed to
| show up as two devices in the device manager, one in the cdrom section and
| another in the disk drives section. However it is not showing up under
disk
| drives at all. The troubleshooting guide that came with the drive says
that
| if this happens the drivers are not properly installed. In the properties
| under cdrom it says it is using Microsoft drivers from two years ago, and
| this is the only thing I can get it to use. I've downloaded the latest
| drivers from Panasonic and they appeared to install okay, but after
| rebooting it is still not working. In Windows Explorer only one drive is
| showing for it instead of two, and it appears as a normal CD-ROM drive. If
I
| try to use the Panasonic format or disk check utilities it says the drive
is
| in use. Is there a way to force XP to stop using it's own drivers and
accept
| the Panasonic driver? Here is the driver information from the device
| manager:
|
| Matshita DVD-RAM LF-D521
| Driver Provider: Microsoft
| Driver Date: 7/1/2001
| Driver Version: 5.1.2530.0
| Digital Signer: Microsoft Windows XP Publisher
|
| Thanks
|
|
|

 

[Jason Stevens]

Well I went back and checked the page you mentioned and sure enough it is
supposed to appear as one device in XP, and two devices in all other
versions of Windows. I don't know how I missed that, but the fact that the
manual alternates between three different languages on each page didn't
help.

Anyway it looks like getting rid of DirectCD took care of the problems, and
it's working great now. Thanks again.

 

[mame]

Glad to help. Hope you enjoy yours as much as I do mine. Just watch out for Princo DVD-RW disks. I could not get them to work with the drive.
Anne

| Well I went back and checked the page you mentioned and sure enough it is
| supposed to appear as one device in XP, and two devices in all other
| versions of Windows. I don't know how I missed that, but the fact that the
| manual alternates between three different languages on each page didn't
| help.
|
| Anyway it looks like getting rid of DirectCD took care of the problems, and
| it's working great now. Thanks again.

| > Thanks for your help
| >
| > | > I have this drive on Windows ME, which does list the drive in 2 places.
| If
| > I'm reading the manual correctly (p. 54), it appears that for WinXP, only
| 1
| > instance will occur. It should show up as drive D - DVD multidrive.
| >
| > I also had to uninstall my Roxio packet writing software and to revert
| back
| > to the Windows aspi. After that the drive works beautifully.
| > Anne

 

[Jason Stevens]

Thanks, I'll remember that.

Glad to help. Hope you enjoy yours as much as I do mine. Just watch out
for Princo DVD-RW disks. I could not get them to work with the drive.
Anne

| Well I went back and checked the page you mentioned and sure enough it is
| supposed to appear as one device in XP, and two devices in all other
| versions of Windows. I don't know how I missed that, but the fact that the
| manual alternates between three different languages on each page didn't
| help.
|
| Anyway it looks like getting rid of DirectCD took care of the problems,
and
| it's working great now. Thanks again.

| > Thanks for your help
| >
| > | > I have this drive on Windows ME, which does list the drive in 2 places.
| If
| > I'm reading the manual correctly (p. 54), it appears that for WinXP,
only
| 1
| > instance will occur. It should show up as drive D - DVD multidrive.
| >
| > I also had to uninstall my Roxio packet writing software and to revert
| back
| > to the Windows aspi. After that the drive works beautifully.
| > Anne

 

[Mikey]

Hi;
Glad to hear you got it running.
One drive in XP.
By the way you should have mentioned the EZ Cd Creator and DirectCd in your
1st post.
All that was in there concerned a drive not being detected properly. Nothing
related to the fact that you nevertheless installed apps dedicated to a
non-functionning device.

Ain't easy then.
Mikey

 

[Jason Stevens]

I had not thought of DirectCD causing the problem because it was already
patched to the latest version and has been working fine for over a year with
my CD-RW drive. In fact I had forgotten DirectCD altogether as I rarely used
it. The Panasonic DVD-RAM is not compatible with the DirectCD packet writing
software so it's not the same problem of drives not being detected that
people had been having. I've removed DirectCD and left Easy CD Creator on
the system and all is working fine with it. I burned a DVD with it earlier
today. I feel like I did when I first got a CD-R drive some years ago. Once
again the discs are expensive, the burning is rather slow, and I'm sitting
there not touching anything saying "please don't make a coaster" over and
over.

Thanks again