Benq DVD-RW EW164 USB--Unknown Device?

Benq DVD-RW EW164 USB as Unknown Device with USB PCI card

Dear Expert,

I recent bought a DVD writer (Benq EW164B)with USB 2.0. Since I only have USB1.0 on my machine, I bought a USB2.0 PCI card too. When I connect my DVD driver to USB1.0 (on main board), DVD writer works fine. The driver occurs in device manager-->DVD/CD rom drives, but when I connect through USB2.0 PCI card, the machine can't reconize it. It shows only in device manager-->universal serial bus controller as UNKNOWN DEVICE. The USB 2.0 PCI card works fine with my scaner, printer and mouse. Do I need to install a driver for the DVD writer? Why it works with USB on main board?

PC:window xp SP2

I thank you in advance to help solving my problem!!!

 

nihaojs, the DVD-RW should not need drivers.
I could not find that model number at BENQ.

You might need drivers installed for the USB2.0 PCI card. Did a drivers disk come with the card? If you don't have an installation CD for the card, you should see if drivers are available for your model at the manufacturer's website.

Matt

 

Thank you Matt for your reply. Benq is product from Taiwan. I installed drivers come with the card. The card works fine with other devices such as printer, scanner and mouse as well as a USB 2.0 External hard disk. Quite strange is it didn't work with DVD. The driver of USB card shows ALI* type, is ALI the manufacturer. Thanks!

 

Found the ALI drivers:

http://www.usbman.com/WebDrivers/Ali USB 2.0/aliehci_152.zip
USBman is a good site for information on USB www.usbman.com

If it still cannot identify the drive after you have installed those drivers, check in the User Guide/manual for any special setup instructions or troubleshooting for the problem.

To try "manually" installing it:
Make certain that if you disconnect the drive and remove/uninstall that UNKNOWN DEVICE, that it does not come back when you reboot with the drive disconnected, otherwise the "unknown device" is some other piece of hardware.
I would connect the drive when the computer is powered off. When you start up Windows should run the Hardware Wizard (if not, run it from Control Panel). In the Hardware Wizard select "I will choose the hardware from a list ". Select the listing for CD (or DVD) drive. There may be several drives listed, but if you choose the wrong one Windows should be able to detect the right type or you may need to run the Wizard again and select one of the other types.

If you cannot install it after that, e-mail the Benq Support staff.
http://bcc.benq.com/BCCFRONTUI/process/newcase.aspx

If you get a solution post back here and let us know what it was. This type of problem has come up before.

Hope you have some luck.
Matt