My problem began with the purchase of a LiteOn external DVD-RW drive. I installed the Nero 7 Home Essentials software (required installation prior to the manufacturer's EZ-DUB software). Things seemed to work fine until after I burned my first DVD. After burning my first DVD with the new drive, I found I could no longer read cd's at all and could not read most DVD's either. To make matters worse it seems to have caused this problem for all of my optical media devices so I can no longer install software from cd's. (In addition to the external drive I also have an internal CD-RW and an internal DVD-ROM.) I'm running Windows 2000 on a try boot system (Windows ME, Windows 2000 and a Windows 2000 clean install). I've tried un-installing the Nero and EZ-DUB software. I've also looked for recently changed .dll and .sys files. I tried replacing some that looked suspect but it didn't resolve the problem. I eliminated hardware as a possible cause by booting from a clean copy of windows 2000 on the same system. I was able to read cd's and dvd's when booted into a clean copy of windows. Running a repair on the corrupted OS didn't solve the problem either. Does any one have a clue what be causing this?
Since the device work with a clean boot, I wonder if it's left over problems from the registry. Did you remove Nero with the 'Nero Clean Tool'? Although this the link refers to an HP PC, the same problem exists on all. Scroll down to 'Clearing Upper and Lower Registry Filters' and check your registry (carefully). http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/fastFaqLiteDocument?lc=en&cc=uk&dlc=en&docname=c00817052
Thanks for responding attar. If by the the "Nero Clean Tool" you mean the un-installer that came with the software, then yes. That's what I used to un-install it. Although, I was less than impressed when it did not clean up any of it's own icons (didn't give me a warm fuzzy that it did a good job of un-installing). I'm looking at the link you posted now and will use that as guide to take a closer look at the registry. Hiker0001
O.K. Sorry it took me a while to get back to this but work has consumed me for the past few days. So, I messed with the registry and crashed my system. The instructions said to go to a particular registry key and delete all instances of upper and lower filters. I should have applied a little common sense here (hard drives also have upper and lower filters). LOL I was able to recover, but now it seems the security file that assigns permissions is crossed with that for the clean install. End result, no user has sufficient privileges to log on unless they have administrator privileges. I'm still trying to sort this one out. Meanwhile, I also used the NERO clean tool you pointed me to. I've still had no luck reading cd's and most DVD's. I can read high quality professionally manufactured DVD's (regular movies) only. I still can't read most dvd's or any cd's (not even profesional quality audio cd's. I've read other forums where people have had the same problem and even gone so far as to to do a re-install of Windows with no luck. Is Nero aware this problem exists?
I had a restore point from before Nero was installed but restoring to that point did not fix the problem. I'm beginning to suspect a .dll, .sys or .inf file was replaced during the Nero install that's causing the problem. The big question is which one/s.