[Bob GW]

My problem is with my Lightscribe drive. Yes, I know there are threads elsewhere dealing with the drives, but I'm in a bit of an unusual situation, very similar to this one, but not exactly.

My drive is NOT recognized as a Lightscribe drive. More accurately, all of my labeling software (Sure Thing, Roxio, Lightscribe, Essentials, etc.) all report the same thing - "no Lightscribe device/drive found". They lie! :-)

Up until as recently as 3 weeks ago, the drive was working fine. Then, a few days ago, right after Windows sent out all of those updates in one day (about 15 on the 10th of December), I tried to make a label and it said "Lightscribe device not found".

I went the HP Tech Support route and the Windows support route (still in progress there). Tried everything that I could come up with and no joy. Here's the list so far:

Reboot - nothing
Restore point - no change
Registry Edit, delete upper/lower limits - no change
Updated driver -no change
Uninstalled/reinstalled in DM (no errors found, no "troubleshoot" option in Properties, device reported as "working properly" - no change
Tried it in Safe Mode - drive still not found
Used Recovery Console to reinstall Lightscribe Host Software - no change
Physically replaced drive with new one - no change
Repeat all of the above with new drive - no fix

The drive works well in ALL aspects, EXCEPT as a Lightscribe drive. Reads, burns, etc. No problem. Just seems to be set on denying it's ethnicity as a Lightscribe drive. It is a Super Multi RW CD/DVD Dl Lightscribe optical drive (TSSTcorp CDDVDW TS-L632N ATA Device). This is an HP DV9500 CTO running Vista Ultimate 32 bit.

Details: HP Pavilion DV9500 CTO,
Intel® Core™2 Duo CPU T7500 @ 2.2 GHz, L1 -64, L2-4096
System Board Quanta 30CB Version 79.26
BIOS F.58, RD 06/2008
RAM: 4 GB installed
Graphics & Display: NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS
Hard Drives: Samsung HM121HII, IDE, 111.79 GB times TWO
DVDRAM GSA-T20L by HL-DT-ST, firmware NC08
LAN: Ethernet, 100 Mbps, Realtek RTL8168B/8111B Family PCI-E Gigabit

The system is certified clean and virus free. Operates OK otherwise. No hardware/software changes associated with the failure of the drive. Still under extended warranty BUT I do NOT want to do a complete destructive reset as I have about $6K in third party apps that I can not get all back.

Anyone have a fix or idea where to look for one?
Bob GWoolf

[leroys1000]

Check here for updated software.
http://www.lightscribe.com/DownloadS...ows/index.aspx
There is also a diagnostic utility to help fix problems.

[Bob GW]

Leroy,

I think I love you! I spent 3 hours on the phone with HP on this issue and the best they could come up with was a destructive recovery. I then spent another 3 hours on the phone with Windows TS (India). Still waiting for call back.

Abd your little utility fixed it i about 30 seconds! The services were NOT set to auto as they should be! All better now! Thank you very much!