Sony CDRW Burner lost Driver

My Sony CDRW external drive suddenly quit running. I uninstalled and reinstalled both Easy CD Creator Std 4 and Direct CD 3 software from CD-Rom disk supplied w/ my Sony laptop FCG-F540 from 1999. OS in Win98 SE.
Ist attempt to install driver said I needed an updated driver.
Found and downloaded driver file for Sony PCGA-CDRW52 Drive (CDRW52.exe).
Reran "to install driver" instruction (below). Said "installation successfulâ€. Checked "SCSI Controller" and device was listed. Ran CRDW52 to burn a disk of data files.
The very next day the drive was not working, again. Tried to install again, but Installation unsuccessful, with the note: the file VA16.mpd was not found with the Sony 16bitATAPI PC Card.
Checking Control Panel/System/System Properties/Device Manager the ATAPI PC could not be found under "SCSI Controllerâ€. I couldn’t exactly remember what I did to install the driver "“ because it was a long, frustrating attempt. Now, not only can’t I seem to install the driver "“ the SCSI Controller" is not even listed under device manager.
What am I doing wrong? When the "add new hardware" wizard says browse for file or have dick "“ I open the folder that I just downloaded the driver in. It also has the VA16.mpd listed. How should I resolve this?

Thank you,
Charlie C.

Here are Win98 installation instructions from the CDRW Drive disk:

4. Windows 98-compatible, 16-bit mode driver

Be sure to install the driver before using your CD-RW drive.

Notes:
Select the "CardBus" mode when using in the Windows operating system.

We do not guarantee the normal operations in the "Recovery" mode even if this driver has been installed.

Do not install this driver when using the PCGA-CD5 together with this CD-ROM drive.

When using the PCGA-CD5 again after you have installed this driver, install the driver from the floppy disk of PCGA-CD5 CD-ROM drive.

You need not install this driver when your are using the PCGA-CD51 drive. Also, you need not install this driver when you are using a pre-install model of PCGA-CD51 drivers (such as PCG-N505 and PCG-Z505FX). To check the PCGA-CD51 driver installation, set the drive to the Recovery mode, connect it to the notebook computer, and follow the "Driver Checkout" of the following installation procedure. If the driver name of "Sony 16Bit ATAPI PC Card" is shown under the "SCSI Controller," the PCGA-CD51 driver has already been installed.

To install the driver:

1. Connect the floppy disk drive to the computer.
2. Turn on your computer.
3. Insert the installation disk in the disk drive.
4. Click the [Start] button, point to [Settings], and then click [Control Panel].
5. Double-click [Add Hardware].
6. Click [Next].
7. Click [Next].
8. Select [No] and click [Next].
9. Select [SCSI Controller] from [Hardware types], and then click [Next].
10. Click [Use a disk].
11. Make sure that the "Source of distribution file" is "A:\" and click [OK].
12. Make sure that the "Model" is "Sony 16Bit ATAPI PC Card" and click [Next].
13. Click [Next].
14. Click [Finish].

The driver has been installed. Next, check the driver you have just installed.

[Driver checkout]
・ Select the [Start] menu, [Settings] and [Control Panel], and then double-click the [System]. The "System Properties" window will appear. Click the [Device Manager] tab and double-click [SCSI Controller].
・If the "PCMCIA ATA Card" is shown at the bottom of "SCSI Controller" list, check the following points.
・Click "PCMCIA ATA Card" and click [Delete].
・Respond with [OK] to the "Confirmation.â€
・Disconnect the CD-RW drive from your computer.
・Connect the CD-RW drive to your computer again.
・Double-click the [SCSI Contrler] in the "System Properties" window and make sure that the "Sony 16Bit ATAPI PC Card" appears.

 

Hi charlie_c, sure does look like fun ????

First I would go to the Sony website and look up the webpage for your laptop and get what they list for driver downloads, these should be the latest. You could try installing those and if they relate to the system that runs your drives, then it MAY just all fall into place. What I hope is that updated "chipset" drivers may be what you need.

No luck... "rip 'em out and shove 'em back in again" .
Boot into Safe Mode. Go to Add/Remove programs and remove anything related to the drive (and even anything named "Sony" if you are sure you have the drivers available). I would also uninstall EasyCD and Direct CD. Go to Device Manager and remove anything related to the drive, eg. SCSI contoller, ATAPC card and CD-RW drive. Shut down and disconnect the drive, card, etc.

When you reboot into normal windows, first install the drivers that you downloaded from the laptop website. If there were no updated drivers, run the drivers disk that came with your machine when you got it (reinstall the motherboard/chipset drivers).
After that, reinstall the drivers for your drive, following(?) the directions carefully.

Don't be afraid to remove drivers if you have the originals or updated drivers to replace them.

Matt
PS In Win 98, I don't pull out or plug in hardware while the machine is running.

 

Hi Matt,
I downloaded CDRW52.exe from Sony.
Question? Where should I download it?
Or does it matter if I browse for it later.
When I click on the exe file it says: The Utility will install ATA PC Card driver to enhance compatability of the PCGA-CDRW52 CD-ROM Drive under Windows 98/ME2000. Where is this?
It created a folder "Sony" with CD51 and CDRW52 subfolders. Under CDRW52 are folders "2000 ", "98 ", "Dos" and "ME" plus a bunch of VA16 files - Setup Info, MPD Files, etc. but I see no ATA PC Card listed here.
I have a System Recovery CD - with drivers. But I see nothing of use to be deleted through "add/remove hardware ". Only Sony DV Shared Library, Notebook Setup, Notebook Setup Sample Sounds, USB Mouse and Utilities DDL.
None of the 3 you listed to delete appears under "Device Manager ". There seems no need to go into "Safe Mode" to delete anything. If so there would be nothing to restore from the System Recovery Drivers List.
So I'm back to installing the driver from the CDRW52.exe that I just got from Sony. Which is where I started having problems in the first place.

Go over this and walk me through what we need to do, again.
Thanks,
Charlie

 

Hi Charlie,
It is important to go into Safe Mode. You sometimes find that Win 98 has almost all your old hardware still listed in Device Manager there, so with your current reloading of the drivers, there may be a long list of previously installed drivers. I searched around to find the best drivers for my modem, but could not locate corresponding "Voice Modem" drivers. The drivers would keep reloading at boot until I found the right ones. When I looked in Device Manager in Safe Mode there were about 10 Voice Modems listed. I removed them all, reinstalled the good drivers in normal mode and haven't seen a peep out them since. I have also had "unexplained" problems with hardware, uninstalled what I found in Safe Mode > Device Manager, reinstalled, and no more problems. Drivers are made up by the hardware manufacturers and are not always written well...more problems,
etc, etc.

I would remove the DV Shared Library in Safe Mode, that may have files that control the CDRW. I would only reinstall it if you use it. In fact, I (personally) would uninstall all those Sony programs if I did not use them. At least, if everything ran well after uninstalling, I would be hesitant to put them back.

There is a hierachy of drivers. The CDRW will be controlled by the SCSI Controller (via the PCMCIA card). The SCSI Controller will forward the data to the chipset. If drivers are not working somewhere along the line....

Next area...the burner programs. The burner programs "take control" of the burner. I had a clash of EasyCD with Nero...result...the optical drives disappeared. Actually, this may be the same problem you have, but you say you uninstalled and reinstalled EasyCD. That does not mean that a file somewhere has not been corrupted. If you happen to have any other burning programs installed, try removing them (my problem was the "built-in" burner of Windows Media Player that is based on EasyCD conflicting with Nero)...mmmm...have you installed a newer version of Windows Media Player??
I would uninstall EasyCD and DirectCD in Safe Mode, then do the driver installation as I said in the previous post, then NOT reinstall EasyCD and DirectCD until it was absolutely neccessary. If the problems reoccurred after reinstalling them, then there will be a conflict there.

Sorry Charlie, I cannot lead you "stepwise ", apart from those that I listed above. You will have drivers and programs that I am unfamiliar with. It could be a driver problem, a program problem or an OS problem (probably due to drivers or programs). I would remove the drivers and programs as best possible (Safe Mode), then reinstall a new/clean set.

Drivers for different hardware can share files, so when removing updated files, the old version needs to be put back. In Safe Mode upper level drivers are not loaded, so all the driver files can be removed while they are not in use.

If it is not solved after that (or it has not pointed to the reason), I would back up my data and run the Sony Recovery disk, reinstalling Windows. After that, if it still happens, I would format the drive, install Windows, install the Sony drivers (motherboard/chipset drivers) then the CDRW drivers.


I cannot find the model of your laptop (FCG-F540) at the Sony website (in case new drivers are available):
http://esupport.sony.com/perl/select-system.pl?DIRECTOR=DRIVER#

Matt

 

Sorry Charlie, I did not answer your specific questions.
I make a folder called Drivers on the C: drive. That's where I download and unzip driver files/programs. You may want to make the folder in My Documents if it was easier to find and importantly, to back-up.

When you run the driver program it unwraps the driver files and adds the model to the list of drivers to choose from.
When you run the Add New Hardware wizard you are instucting Windows where to find the driver files for that hardware. The type of hardware you are installing is a SCSI Controller, the "model" of your hardware is an ATAPI PC card and (because I am unfamiliar with laptops) you may have to select it under the Sony heading.

Make sure you are following the instructions for Win 98, different versions of Windows have different "wizards ". Also try selecting through the "have disk" button.
Check for instructions in the CDRW52 -> Win 98 folder. Look for .txt and .doc files.

Check that it does say ATAPI PC card on the card itself, if it is a different model you will have to select that one. Direct(browse) the wizard to the CDRW52 -> Win 98 folder. The OK button should change from "greyed-out ". If it is still greyed-out go back up to the CDRW52 folder it should find the (.inf) file there.

The problem is that the drivers are not "sticking ", that is, you lose them on reboot. The wrong drivers for your model may be installed, programs are interferring with the drivers or there may be a basic problem with Windows
itself. As I said, the best thing to do is to remove as much as possible and try again.
PS When you connect or disconnect, shut down the machine.

Hope you have some luck,
Matt

 

Matt,
I rebooted in "safe mode. Under the "SCSI Controller" tab was "Sony 16Bit ATAPI PC Cardâ€. Since it didn't show in normal mode - I deleted it, along w/ thr Sony DV Shared Library. Upon normal reboot, my CDRW devise turned on. Direct CD was working - but not CD Creator. I copied and pasted a few folders to that drive and checked to find that they were there. But it soon stopped accepting the files. I rebooted again to retry it and to add the CD Creator and everything was messed up again. Driver gone again and nothing working. I will try those steps again later - I am involved with something else now. Will update you later.
Thanks,
Charlie

 

Matt,
I rebooted in "safe mode. Under the Device Manager/“SCSI Controller" tab was "Sony 16Bit ATAPI PC Cardâ€. Since it didn't show in normal mode - I deleted it, along w/ the Sony DV Shared Library.
Rebooted in "Normal ". Reinstalled "Sony DV Shared Library" from Sony Application Recovery disk.
Tried to reinstall driver as per "read me" text on Sony's CD-RW Drive "Installation Disk" - using the installation disk as the source.. Said was installing - but progress bar window just flashed by without progress bar moving. So as expected - the "Sony 16Bit ATAPI PC Card" was not found under Device Manager/ "SCSI Controller ".
Tried to browse to the newly created "C/sony" folder that was created from the downloaded CDRW52.exe - that was supposed to contain the updated driver. Same thing happened there. Said was installing, etc. - but nothing was found.
I have just bought an external DVD/CD burner - but need to save some files to disk to make space to install. I may be able to delete some files - but would prefer to save these to a disk.
I think I am about to go crazy - I'm stuck in a never-ending loop, it appears.
Anything to add?
Charlie

 

For now, try this. Update the Windows installer using the download listed under the section "Windows 95 and Windows 98" here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;296742#XSLTH3130121123120121120120

Think about sending an email to Sony Support. Don't worry that the product is out of warranty. Register the products if that is required. They will want your future business, so they should try to answer your query.

I have had problems with installing Sony hardware in the past myself and only solved it after much trial and error (completely different to their instructions). Look at the different methods of installing (try select from list). Also, after installing, shutdown and disconnect the card, boot into Windows, then shutdown and reconnect the card to see if it gets recognised (maybe you have been trying this).

Will post back later.
Matt

 

Did you find the website page/downloads for your laptop model? Updated drivers for your laptop may hold the key. Another possibility with the laptop itself is that it needs a BIOS upgrade. If you do a BIOS upgrade, follow the instructions carefully.

When you try to install or reinstall drivers, go into Safe Mode and remove the old listing.

Windows controls optical and SCSI drives with ASPI layer drivers. These are the ones that can get corrupted by EasyCD, etc. If they cannot be reset, you may need to look at reinstalling Windows over itself or format and reinstall Windows fresh. After a clean install of Windows, install the motherboard/chipset drivers, the graphics drivers, *then I would install the CDRW*, then any other drivers. When all the drivers are installed (and tested...a few reboots), then I would look at installing EasyCD, DirectCD and then upgrading/installing programs.

If your install of Windows has been there a long time it may be that the registry is getting "clogged ". If you decide to reformat, before you do and after backing-up, run Regclean, it may just be able to clean out the broken links, etc, but I would not guarantee it. Some people reformat once a year, wether needed or not, I have run installs of Win 95 and Win 98 for 4-5 years with careful maintenance, but they need to be reformatted eventually.

Let me know if I can help find drivers for your laptop. Sony's websites only run on local areas and apparently you or the machine are not from the US.

Matt