I have had partial success in getting the various versions of Wavelab (6, 7, 8.5 and Pro 9) to at least recognize the existence of my 2 CD writers, and to be able to write to the inbuilt one…but not to the external Plextor (USB 2.0 connected)
The problem of recognizing the external drive (Plextor 708A/UF: USB and Firewire) is common to both installations of Wavelab on 2 separate laptops…a Lenovo T61 Win 7 Professional 32 bit and a Lenovo W500 Win 7 Professional 64bit.
I performed a registry adjustment recommended in an earlier forum contribution by Mljung: Solved: Import Audio CD doesn't work. - WaveLab - Steinberg Forums
The repair is outlined here: Itunes registry settings missing [Solved] and effectively adds the GEARAspi.wdm driver to the UpperFilter.
Having done this for both computers it has achieved the following:
Device Manager recognizes/lists all CD drives, and Device Manager Properties declares for all drives (2 x internal and 1x Plextor external USB) : “This device is working properly”. There are no yellow warning flags for either drive, on both laptops.
It shows the drivers present for each drive (4 drivers for each drive device, in the case of 32 bit Lenovo):
C/Windows/System32/drivers/ASAPI.sys; C/Windows/System32/drivers/cdrbsdrv.sys; C/Windows/System32/drivers cdrom.sys; C/Windows/System32/drivers/GEARAspi.WDM.sys
In the case of the 64 bit Lenovo it shows 2 drivers present for each drive device:
C/Windows/System32/drivers/cdrom.sys; C/Windows/System32/drivers/ GEARAspi.WDM.sys
My Computer shows both drives as being present, with drive letters assigned to each drive.
Wavelab Basic Audio CD across all versions 6 to Pro 9 shows the Ready to Burn dialog as possible for DDP plus each of the 2 CD/DVD drives (internal and Plextor external).
So far so good…
However, when a blank Verbatim inkjet printable CD is inserted into the Plextor it registers as “no disc present”…. when the same blank CD-R is taken out and put into the internal laptop drive of both computers, it is registered as valid and a range of burn speed options (4x to 24x) appears.
When a commercially produced DVD video or Audio CD disc (or a blank disc) is put into the Plextor, it fails to recognize any content…it attempts to read the contents of all inserted discs, and then simply flashes a sequence of 2 amber lights, but the disc fails to spin and the drive ‘hibernates’
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So I’m at a crossroads where all 3 drives are recognized, named as being “ready” by Windows, all have several drivers (including GEARAspi) present, all have drive letters associated with them, yet only the internal CD/DVD drives are able to play recorded content or burn a Wavelab Basic Audio CD.
I’m wondering whether I need to delete some of the 2 (or 4) drivers associated with each of the computers…perhaps it is a case that only the GEARAspi drivers are necessary ? However, it might also be possible that the other driver(s) are required for playback of audio or DVD video ?
If someone from this forum with a working CD/DVD writer that successfully burns with (any version of) Wavelab project is able to list the drivers present in their ‘Device Manager: Driver properties’ menu, that might help to determine whether I can safely remove some of these non-necessary drivers ? Can only 1 driver take priority for a particular function, or are multiples (as I have here) required for different tasks ?
I’ll end here for now, but I’m happy to supply additional information if requested, and hopefully this might serve as a helpful ‘solution in progress’ guide for others experiencing the same problem ?
I may have to consider the possibility that the Plextor drive has failed, as the blinking light FAQ on plextor.be shows the following error for amber flash light blinking twice: “Auto adjustment failed: Cannot read a stamped disc or initialize a CD-R/RW disc because the drive cannot properly configure the focus and track adjustment settings”