I have installed DRU500AX instead of my older CDRW drive. The system could see DRU500, could read files from it, but could not start any applications (like SW setup disk that came with the drive). Error messages varied from Kernel32 problems to advice to check a Windows Installer version. When booted in safe mode, all worked. To troubleshoot, I installed second copy of WinXP on another drive (no SP1). Immediately after XP installation, all worked, and I was able to install the DLA software that came with DRU500. After that, I rebooted, and my old problems came back. I used System Restore to come back to the point before DLA installation, but the problem still exists. Based on these symptoms (works in Safe mode, and worked once on fresh XP), can anyone guess what it might be ? Athlon 1.2G, Iwill MB with RAID 0, WinXP with or without SP1
OK, disabling DMA on the corresponding IDE channel helped. This explains Safe-mode symptom: in Safe mode, DMA is automatically disabled.