I've tried 2 different Samsung DVD burners on my Windows XP SP2 system. On each of them, when I boot up, Windows tries to go through the found new hardware wizard, but it can't find any software to load for these drives. After the Wizard gives up, I get 3 error windows that all say the same thing: "Windows could not load the installer for . Contact your hardware vendor for assistance." You read that right. Could not load installer for "." Then, after I cancel those 3 errors, the drive works as expected, though I personally believe it's not recognizing media as well as it should. It sees Maxell 16X DVD-R media as 8X or 12X at best.

Samsung's web site says there *isn't* any particular Windows drivers that need to be loaded, but Windows wants to load software for either of these drives every time I reboot. The problem does not happen with an older DVD ROM drive I have. Windows found that one and installed it as expected.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Max.

Are they ATA or SATA drives. If the latter, make sure the jumpers, Master/Slave, is set correctly. If SATA, check the BIOS settings to make sure SATA is enabled. Is the drive recognized in the BIOS?

This is very rare (3 computers in a year, maybe, hopefully you dont have this issue ) where the burners come up in windows with the yellow exclamation mark next to them in Device Manager, and no matter where you plug them in, no matter what type (sata/ide), no matter what brand and no matter if you remove or update drivers for the chipset or drives them selves, they dont show up in explorer and always will have the issue in device manager. If you have this issue, sofar it is UNFIXABLE. Windows Repair - after the first blue section and the computer restarts it comes up with the "Enter Windows CD" - it carrys accross after you try a repair (this shows up in XP AND VISTA).

Only solution i have found - Backup and Reinstall.

BTW - is the motherboard a gigabyte or features a VIA based chipset?

Thanks for both of your replies. Here are some answers

They're one of each. The jumper on the IDE drive has been tried both at master (it's the only drive on the controller) and as cable select.

Both drives are recognized in the BIOS.

After the error messages, both drives would function properly. They show up in Explorer. They are listed in Device Manager without the yellow exclamation mark, too, but I'm worried about using the drives like this. The first drive (a Samsung SH-W162) is less than 2 years old and has probably only burned 80 or 90 disks in its whole life. It's being replaced because it stopped burning DVDs, then it stopped burning CDs, then it stopped reading disks all together.

The second drive that I just bought is a Samsung SH-S203B. I was hoping the new drive would eliminate that error message I get every time I reboot, but it didn't.

My MB is an EPoX 9NPA nVidia NForce 4 chipset and I *believe* I'm running an Athlon 64 3700+ (it's been a while since I bought it.) 1 GB RAM. When I first set it up, I tried overclocking it, but was not successful, so I'm *pretty* sure the MB is just running at suggested settings. Again, it has been a long time since I put it together.

Thanks again for your replies. I like to think I'm pretty good at hardware trouble shooting, but this one has me stumped.

Max.

Are there Yellow Exclamation Marks Next to the Drives in Device Manager?

Heh... I was just editing my message above to include that answer. No, everything looks fine in DM.

Max.

If you haven't done so, clear the CMOS. Also, update the firmware. Samsung has a program, at least for their DVD burners, that will do this and it worked well with my Samsung DVD burner. You could also try a Repair off the WIndows CD. Possible the problem is with Windows

Just so that I know I understand you 100%, when you say "clear the CMOS" do you mean to reset it to factory defaults?

Also, when you say "update the firmware" would that be the firmware of the DVD drive or the MB? I had already checked the DVD's firmware and it was up to date. I suppose checking the firmware revision of the MB is probably a good idea, too.

Max.

I was referring to the DVD firmware. While clearing the CMOS will reset to the factory default, it will also clear the BIOS memory, it's more complete than just resetting the BIOS. The instructions for clearing the CMSO will be in the mobo or computer manual. Basically what you do is move a small plastic cap over one pin, the pins are usually near the battery. Unplug the PSU, move the cap, wait about a minute and move the cap back to its original location. Some instructions say to remove the battery as well but I've never done this and the CMOS was cleared. If clearing the CMOS doesn't do it, you could update the BIOS. But if clearing the CMOS doesn't do it, I'd do a Windows Repair off the Windows CD. You'll likely have to reinstall your drivers, been quite a while since I did this, put it shouldn't affect your programs.

Well, I upgraded the MB BIOS to the latest, but still have the same problem... although there seems to be a different pattern now. When I boot into Windows, a little yellowish balloon pops up in the bottom right corner of the screen saying it found the drive, then it says it found another drive (the DVD-ROM drive) then it goes back to the showing the DVD-RW drive, then that same error pops up. Clicking OK on the error starts the new hardware wizard as before.

The yellow balloon box didn't previously show the drive's name twice. I don't really think that's a big enough difference to mean anything.

I think tomorrow I'm going to call Samsung to see what they suggest. I've done a Windows repair enough times to know I don't want to do that unless I absolutely have to.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Max.

Let us know what Samsung has to say, curious

OK, I didn't call Samsung. Instead, I ran a recovery from the XP install CD. That seemed to clear up the problem... as well as a couple of others. I was also having a lot of problems with Explorer crapping out on me... especially if I tried to view a folder on my PC with more than a hand full of picture, and Explorer was trying to view them as thumbnails.

I hated to do it, though. As I expected, it took me several hours to work out reinstalling all the right drivers and making sure all the programs were up to date.

I guess it was worth it, though. Thanks to everyone for your help.

Max.