Recently bought a optorite DD0203 DVD writer and a external firewire case and have the following problem. When I plug the writer in, Windows can see it, but cannot detect when a disk is inserted. I just get an "insert disk" message. If I power the DVD writer on with a disk already in then windows explorer works fine. I also cannot unmount the writer, as it says it is in use by another application. I have uninstalled all CD/DVD writing software (along with registry entries for UPPERFILTERS and LOWERFILTERS) , but with no effect. However, these problems were present before the DVD software was installed, when only Roxio easy cd creator and direct cd were present (for the internal CDRW) I'm using windows 2000 SP3 on a dell latitude 640 laptop. The firewire interface is a generic NEC based OHCI compliant cardbus PCMCIA card. A DV camcorder and external hard disk work fine. The DVD writer and firewire card work fine on another dell laptop. The DVD writer also works fine on a desktop machine. I have seen other similar messages referring , but with no solutions. I think it is a windows problem.
Update Found the problem (or rather the IT guy did). A driver for an omniflash Compact flash reader (FlashKsk.exe) was loading at startup and interfering with the DVD. Uninstalling it, solved the problem. Hopefully, this may help others with similar problems. I was starting to despair at finding a solution. Hopefully, this may help others with similar problems. I was startign to despair at finding a solution.
