DVD-drive disappeared after installing GJ 4.1.1.1

[Eugen]

Hello!

After installing Game Jackal pro ver. 4.1.1.1 my DVD drive stopped working and disappeared from "My Computer" window.

I went to "manage hardware" (right click on "My computer" --- "properties" --- "hardware manager") and there was an error alert on my DVD drive (Slimtype DVDRW SSW-8015S). I tryed re-installing Game Jackal as well as re-installing DVD drive (deleting from the system and then installing again). Nothing helped. As far as I remember the error included "possible damage of some registry values/keys"

I am happy I had made a backup of my system before installing GJ so now I rolled back the changes. It canceled the installation of GJ and my DVD drive appeared again.

I run Win XP Home SP3. No anti-virus or firewall software is currently installed on my computer. The computer is a laptop Acer Aspire 1640Z.

I downloaded Game Jackal from the official website of slysoft.

I don't know what additional information I could provide. Anyway I thought I had to report this bug.

Thank you!

 

[matthew]

This happens if the drivers are not loading correctly, or are missing. Was there any error during the installation?

If you are interesting, we could open a support ticket a try to get this sorted.

 

[Eugen]

DVD-drive

There were no errors during the installation of Game Jackal.

Please take a look at the screenshot attached. There is some info. The screenshot was taken after the installation of GJ.

Before the installation of GJ the DVD-drive worked perfectly. However right after the installation of GJ and rebooting the computer DVD-drive disappeared from "My Computer". You can see the error description on the screenshot I have attached.

What additional information or reports are needed? Please give me the instructions on how to create all necessary system reports and when I have some free time I'll do them and send to you.

Thanks to the great feature "Try and Decide" of one program (I will not mention the name of this program - I am not advertising anything) I can roll back any changes that GJ does during installation. I can simply enable this feature before installing GJ and then take a decision on whether to apply or cancel any changes (damage) done to my system.

So I can easily reproduce this bug at any time quickly and without any damage to my computer and Windows/software.

 

[matthew]

Thanks for the info.

I'm not sure why the GJ drivers are not loading correctly, I may be a conflict with other software installed on your system.

First of all, download and install v4.1.1.2
Also what is the "try and decide" software you are referring to? These types of applications are quit intrusive, so we need to check for compatibility issues.

Is there any other software on your system that you think could cause a problem?

 

[Eugen]

Game Jackal 4.1.1.2 - the same problem

Try and decide feature is part of Acronis True Image Home 2011 software: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

Unfortunately the same bug is with GJ 4.1.1.2 Even worse I could not roll back the changes after installing GJ with Acronis TI "Try and Decide". I had BSOD ("blue screen of death") and my Windows (XP Home) crashed. So I had to restore factory default settings of my computer and then restore the system from a previously made Acronis full backup image. So now everything is alright.

I have the same problem even without using "Try and Decide" feature. When I installed GJ for the first time I had the same bug (dvd drive disappeared). Only then I began to test it activating "Try and Decide" feature first.

It seems that GJ is completely incompatible with my software/dated hardware. My laptop is 5 years old.

Now when I have more serious consequences after installing GJ 4.1.1.2 and can not cancel the changes safely for my computer it seems no longer possible for me to test a new version of GJ. Sorry.

 

[matthew]

Have you tried versions prior to v4.1.1.1?

 

[sweetfa]

Windows XP installations lose DVD drive after installation

I have the same issue on two separate lenovo g550 laptops running windows XP.

This occurs with both 4111 and 4112

Installation of 4112 on Windows 7 (32bit) installation on the same hardware does not exhibit the same system.

When the drive is lost, uninstallation and reinstallation of the drivers does not fix the problem. The only way to fix is a complete reinstallation of the operating system.

I believe this needs to be lodged as a bug.

 

[neferata]

DVD-drive disappeared, too...

I have the same problem as Eugen.

I use AnyDVD, CloneCD and ConeDVD for a long time, and bought now CloneDVD mobile and GameJackal (because I have 3 little nephews who like playing computer).

So I installed CloneDVD mobil and GameJackal as well as an update of AnyDVD. After rebooting my DVD-drive disappeared, and I have no clone of my windowsXP (SP 2) installation! So I am really angry!

I tried to deinstall and install my dvd-drive in the hard-manager, searched for new driver for DVD and found an explanation of Microsoft of error 41 (which I found in the hardware-manager); MS is saying the driver was load, but the dvd was not found (in German: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310123/de)

In my opinion it is a problem of GameJackal which is using the driver of the DVD-drive... and changing it.

When searching solutions about this problem I found this problem (from Feb. 2010) in the German forum, but nobody gave an answer!

It could not be that I have to reinstall Windows again!!! I have not paid for that! :bang:

 

[hrgargi]

I don't have a solution how to get back your drive (I guess you already have deinstalled both programs first and eventually did a repair install of your operation system), but for the future I recommend using a good backup programm like clonezilla ( http://clonezilla.org ). It's free and very fast. So I regularly backup my windows and linux installations with it and it saved me a lot of time up to now. Windows (30gig) takes about 8 minutes to backup. Hope that helps a little bit.

 

[matthew]

I have the same problem as Eugen.

I use AnyDVD, CloneCD and ConeDVD for a long time, and bought now CloneDVD mobile and GameJackal (because I have 3 little nephews who like playing computer).

So I installed CloneDVD mobil and GameJackal as well as an update of AnyDVD. After rebooting my DVD-drive disappeared, and I have no clone of my windowsXP (SP 2) installation! So I am really angry!

I tried to deinstall and install my dvd-drive in the hard-manager, searched for new driver for DVD and found an explanation of Microsoft of error 41 (which I found in the hardware-manager); MS is saying the driver was load, but the dvd was not found (in German: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310123/de)

In my opinion it is a problem of GameJackal which is using the driver of the DVD-drive... and changing it.

When searching solutions about this problem I found this problem (from Feb. 2010) in the German forum, but nobody gave an answer!

It could not be that I have to reinstall Windows again!!! I have not paid for that! :bang:

First of all I should point out that GJ does not modify any drivers, it installs it's own class drivers.

Does uninstalling GJ fix the issue?
You can also manually uninstall the drivers by opening a commandline prompt and from the GJ bin folder "C:\Program Files\SlySoft\Game Jackal v4\bin" (or "C:\Program Files (x86)\SlySoft\Game Jackal v4\bin" for x64) run the following
mfd_install.exe /uninstall
mlfd_install.exe /uninstall
Then reboot.

What OS and motherboard are you running?

 

[neferata]

Hello Matthew,

thanks for your reply.

I use Windows XP (SP 2) and my Board is an Asus (Intel Socket 775); it is the P5K.

In my systeminformation I could not find any conflicts with double use of IRQs.

My DVD-Device is an ATAPI DVD A DH20A4P SCSI CdRom Device, but I could not find out the producers name. It is the only DVD-Device which I use at the moment; I want to buy another one...

So the DVD-Device is the only one which is used IDE (I changed the cable, but does not help), because my harddisk is S-ATA.

As I have deinstalled Game Jackal (and it does not help me to solve the problem), I could not deinstall the drivers manually.

I used also Auslogic Registry cleaner to delete all entries of Game Jackal... but that also did not help to solve my problem.

At the hardware-manager I found those information about the installed drivers (maybe this could help):
AnyDVD.sys (Version 6.7.4.1)
cdrom.sys (MS, Version 5.1.2600.3126)
ElbyCDFL.sys (Version 5.2.1.3)
imapi.sys (MS, Version 5.1.2600.2180)
redbook.sys (MS, Version 5.1.2600.2180)
storprop.dll (MS, Version 5.1.2600.2180)

Last April one program which should make "screenshots" about the system crashed and ruined my MBR of my harddisk. So I really had troubles to rebuild all my datas... but it worked. So I had to install my OS newly and had not found until now (because now I do not trust such programms anymore) a good program for that (to make clones or backups or points to return).

In other words, I use my computer for work very often (but seldom the dvd-device) and I do not want to install the OS and all my programs again (at the moment).

Maybe the troubles started because first of all I installed an update of AnyDVD, then I installed Game Jackal... and then I rebooted?! Or maybe it was the other way (I could not remember exactly). First the installation of Game Jackal and then update of AnyDVD? But normally that should work...

But I also deinstalled AnyDVD as well as GameJackal... and there was no change. So I installed AnyDVD again...

 

[matthew]

Hello Matthew,

thanks for your reply.

I use Windows XP (SP 2) and my Board is an Asus (Intel Socket 775); it is the P5K.

In my systeminformation I could not find any conflicts with double use of IRQs.

My DVD-Device is an ATAPI DVD A DH20A4P SCSI CdRom Device, but I could not find out the producers name. It is the only DVD-Device which I use at the moment; I want to buy another one...

So the DVD-Device is the only one which is used IDE (I changed the cable, but does not help), because my harddisk is S-ATA.

As I have deinstalled Game Jackal (and it does not help me to solve the problem), I could not deinstall the drivers manually.

I used also Auslogic Registry cleaner to delete all entries of Game Jackal... but that also did not help to solve my problem.

At the hardware-manager I found those information about the installed drivers (maybe this could help):
AnyDVD.sys (Version 6.7.4.1)
cdrom.sys (MS, Version 5.1.2600.3126)
ElbyCDFL.sys (Version 5.2.1.3)
imapi.sys (MS, Version 5.1.2600.2180)
redbook.sys (MS, Version 5.1.2600.2180)
storprop.dll (MS, Version 5.1.2600.2180)

Last April one program which should make "screenshots" about the system crashed and ruined my MBR of my harddisk. So I really had troubles to rebuild all my datas... but it worked. So I had to install my OS newly and had not found until now (because now I do not trust such programms anymore) a good program for that (to make clones or backups or points to return).

In other words, I use my computer for work very often (but seldom the dvd-device) and I do not want to install the OS and all my programs again (at the moment).

Maybe the troubles started because first of all I installed an update of AnyDVD, then I installed Game Jackal... and then I rebooted?! Or maybe it was the other way (I could not remember exactly). First the installation of Game Jackal and then update of AnyDVD? But normally that should work...

But I also deinstalled AnyDVD as well as GameJackal... and there was no change. So I installed AnyDVD again...

There is nothing odd in the installed driver list, however I should point out that the GJ drivers are not in the list and as such can be ruled out as the cause of the drive not loading.

Can you do the following (in the order specified).

1) Open up regedit, and head to key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}". From here list the values for "UpperFilters" and "LowerFilters".
2) Open Device Manager (right-click My Computer, select manage). From here locate the DVD drive (it will have a disabled symbol next to it). Delete the driver from the list, then select scan for new hardware. If all is good it should find the drive and reinstall. Let me know if this fixes the issue.

Let me know the results.

 

[neferata]

Hello Matthew,

1)
here are the values from LowerFilters:
AnyDVD
ElbyCDFL

and the value from UpperFilters:
GEARAspiWDMmaplom

2) I deleted several times the driver from the list for my dvd-device (in the hardmanager), and scanned for new hardware. But it did not fix the issue...
I just tried it again... it does not work. And I do not have special drivers for it, so always the drivers from Microsoft are installed afterwards.

Maybe the Game Jackal driver has "attached" a different driver and was incomplete or incompatible (or maybe the drivers from AnyDVD ?).

The problem is that I really deinstalled everything from GameJackal in the hope that my dvd-device will be found again. I also deinstalled AnyDVD and installed it again (but here I did not deinstalled things in the registry).

 

[matthew]

Hmmm the upper filter value looks suspect.

Just to clarify, is GEARAspiWDMmaplom a single value?
It should be
GEARAspiWDM

or with GJ installed
GEARAspiWDM
maplom

i.e. to separate values.

Change it to GEARAspiWDM, then reboot (you drive should return).
If it does, reinstall GJ and all should be good.

Why the value become corrupt, I have no idea (as far as I know, the code used to install this values has remain unchanged for main years).

 

[neferata]

DVD-device is back!!!! Thank you very much!

Dear Matthew,

I am so glad that my DVD-device is shown again! :rock:

It is the first time I really got help for my problems!

Thanks you a lot!

Kindest regards, Susanne

 

[matthew]

That is excellent news. Did you try reinstalling GJ?

 

[neferata]

everything works... thanks!

Dear Matthew,

many thanks! If you had not asked me whether I had installed Game Jackal again I would not have tried... fearing that my DVD-device will disappear again.

But now I have reinstalled Game Jackal and everything works well, and my DVD-device is shown in the explorer. So everything is fine and I really thank you for your help and your patience.

All in all it is a good start in the new year for me because last year I had so many troubles with hardware... and software.

Yours, Susanne