Windows 7 Windows 7 starter doesn't recognize LG DVD rewriter

dannyvenier

New Member
I've seen a few posts and some solutions to a similar problem where the driver signing was the issue.

My problem has similar symptoms but is not a result of signing and can't be fixed by deleting the filter keys in registry.

symptoms: new Acer Netbook. New LG External Super Multi DVD Rewriter (GP08). Plug in USB drive, but windows 7 declares a problem with recognizing the drive. (Same drive is immediately recognized by XP laptop, loads drivers, so the drive is okay - problem is with windows 7)

In device manager, a yellow exclamation mark shows beside a USB unknown device. I've tried uninstalling, restarting etc., but to no avail.

Has anyone else experienced this problem (which is not solvable by removing filter keys for CDROM class in HKLM)?

My conclusion so far is that windows 7 just doesn't have the device/manufacturer id in its driver database so it doesn't know to load the DVD/CDROM drivers....but if that's the case, how do I manually tell windows which drivers to use?
 
It's possible that a single USB port from your netbook is incapable of supply enough power and there seems to be an option with that particular model to use a second cable and second USB port to boost the power available. Is that an option you have tried?
 
thanks for the quick reply. I have indeed tried the whole process with both the usb 2 and usb power-only cable connected. The result was the same. I have seen other posts about this particular drive working on netbooks without the power cable so I assume that power is not the issue. I have not actually researched the power supplied from the netbook is within specs - I probably should - but since the drive is advertised as a great drive for netbooks, I would think some attention would be drawn to that spec if it was close to the line. I will check that detail but I am pretty confident that its something else.

I am not aware of any place where I can query the list of windows supported devices. I am able, from my test on my xp laptop, to see the drivers and device information so if there was a list somewhere I could quickly check whether its just one of those new devices on a new OS that is not covered yet.

All that being said, do you know if there is a way to manually force the drivers to cdrom.sys, imapi.sys, pxHelp20.sys etc that are necessary to have this thing function as a generic cdrom/dvd drive?
 
According to this if you have a GP08LU10 your drive is Win7 32 and 64bit compatible http://www.microsoft.com/windows/compatibility/windows-7/en-us/Details.aspx?type=Hardware&p=LG%20ELECTRONICS%20GP08LU10%208X%20Super%20Multi%20DVD%20Burner&v=LG%20ELECTRONICS&uid=GP08LU10&pf=1&pi=9&c=Storage%20Devices&sc=CD%2fRW%20%2f%20DVD%2fRW&os=32-bit
And according to this if you have a GP08NU10 your drive is Win7 32 and 64bit compatible Windows 7 Compatibility LG ELECTRONICS LG ELECTRONICS GP08NU10 DVD Burner
without any additonal action required, no additional drivers, firmware or software, so I wouldn't recommend trying to force feed Win7 any additional generic drivers. Since it works on the XP laptop I wouldn't suspect any hardware issues with the drive itself. I do no that some times rebooting the netbook with the drive attached may reallocate power for the usb ports but not sure that will help. Also check in device manager under Universal Serial Bus Controllers each hub and or root hub, under power management tab and make sure to uncheck the allow computer to turn off. Also the power tab may give you some info on what type of power what device is using
 
once again, thanks. Now that I "know" windows 7 supports the drive, I've tried a few things to test the power fail theory. A full shutdown and restart with both cables didn't work. Then I tried with the usb data cable between the netbook and drive while I fed the power off of my full size laptop (power usb cable between my laptop and the drive). There should have been plenty of power supplied but still no luck. (I did uninstall the failed device first).

the device that fails is "Unknown Device" in the USB controllers category. when I click on the unknown device with the yellow exclamation point, I get the error code 43.
-----
Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43)


A device driver notified the operating system that the device failed.
-----
googling this error message results in a wide range of devices with similar problems. I have not seen any referring to a power issue, but the generic conclusion is that the driver gave it up and reported failure to the OS. Most the responses I've read suggest a driver issue. It could be a usb port issue rather than a drive issue, however, I have tried my wireless mouse (with usb wifi dongle) and it works on all the three usb ports just fine.

The drive seems fine, the windows 7 drivers, not sure, the Acer usb controller.....is suspect in my mind. Strangely though, I have seen precious little in the way of forum equivalent-problems. I would suspect many new netbook users are plugging in slim dvd drives so I would expect more intel out on the web about this problem....sigh.....
 
First, maybe if you have an opportunity to plug the device into another Win7 machine, (friend, relative, neighbor) of course Win7 Starter would be ideal, but I wouldn't suspect mandatory, just to get your driver questions answered, might be something you could try? Then perhaps another approach might be to borrow an external drive that has independent AC power and plug it into your Netbook and see if that works (maybe to determine if the USB port available power is the issue) Because I'm just wondering if the "Unknown Device" is actually the USB / Power Adapter and not actually the drives USB interface cable itself. I checked LG's website and it seems all messed up right now so I wasn't able to retreive any useful information there. Did the device come with any type of CD and if so does it contain an independent driver for that Power Interface Cable, I'm just thinking that Win7 may not know what that particular device actually is.
 
unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on your perspective) I don't have another windows 7 machine anywhere in sight. I've ordered the 7 upgrade cds for my wife's dell studio, but I am not at all sure I'll "upgrade" it from vista. My exp with the netbook, driver, plus the dang trustedInstaller blocking me from all sorts of things has soured me on windows 7. I don't have another external dvd drive, but I do have a few external hard drives in usb enclosures that might mimic the power and/or usb needs of the dvd drive (different drivers tho) so I'll try plugging in another hard drive as soon as I can wrestle the netbook back from my daughter. Plus the start spin load on power is probably much greater for the dvd player.

LG's site seems to have some glitches right now. I get placeholder X's for pictures and don't know what I'm linking to when I click them but I don't believe they provide any drivers for the GP08 device because the drivers for DVD/CDs are generic, according to Jerry K posts on a driverGuide forum.

I put in a question to Acer but I fear this will fall into a finger pointing exercise - MS says talk to LG, LG says talk to acer and acer says talk to LG or MS.

My belief is that its an Acer issue - something wonky with their usb controller but that is just a wild-assed guess (WAG). I'll post again when I try the external HD test.

thanks much,
Danny
 
I tried the usb HD and it recognized the device right away and used the same usb mass storage device driver that the external DVD drive (should) use. (it used usbstor.sys).

Doing some reading....omigod, MS has limited functionality quite a bit on the starter version of windows 7. One thing in particular, at least one thing I've seen on some posts, is that you can't do DVD playback with windows 7 starter. Boy, that took some digging to find out which I guess I should have done before buying because one function I wanted for this thing was to be able to playback dvds. I doubt this limitation explains why the driver won't work since playback of dvds does not include use of the dvd drive in general for loading sw or cutting a recovery CD. My spider senses are wondering whether this is Microsoft's way of preventing users from using "advanced" functionality on a netbook? I guess I have the option of trying XP for netbooks, or upgrading to W7 Home, or go the Linux route, but the current OS is unworkable. I thought I was losing my mind trying just to customize the wallpaper when I read that the starter version doesn't have that functionality. Wow.....Apparently XP for notebooks limits the disk drive to 160GB which is another tidbit I read in my travels. What a pain...what on earth could they be thinking.

Anyway, for the time being, I have a basic netbook with no DVD. If I am changing OS, maybe XP or linux will support a basic DVD drive. Maybe I should research those options before killing another day.
 
Sorry Danny, I think that's why they call it Troubleshooting, because it causes you so much trouble you feel like shooting something. Good luck with the OS change and keep us posted as to the final resolution
 
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You could try to have a look at the possible suggestions at this site: Windows 7 DVD Drive Not Working Problem Missing Disappeared Error Gone Not Found Not Recognized in x64 and x86

It seems like a rather common problem with windows 7.
cheers,
--mike



I've seen a few posts and some solutions to a similar problem where the driver signing was the issue.

My problem has similar symptoms but is not a result of signing and can't be fixed by deleting the filter keys in registry.

symptoms: new Acer Netbook. New LG External Super Multi DVD Rewriter (GP08). Plug in USB drive, but windows 7 declares a problem with recognizing the drive. (Same drive is immediately recognized by XP laptop, loads drivers, so the drive is okay - problem is with windows 7)

In device manager, a yellow exclamation mark shows beside a USB unknown device. I've tried uninstalling, restarting etc., but to no avail.

Has anyone else experienced this problem (which is not solvable by removing filter keys for CDROM class in HKLM)?

My conclusion so far is that windows 7 just doesn't have the device/manufacturer id in its driver database so it doesn't know to load the DVD/CDROM drivers....but if that's the case, how do I manually tell windows which drivers to use?
 
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