Hi, I just received my 3540a and stuck it in a Plumax USB/Firewire Combo enclosure. This is the enclosure: http://www.dealsonic.com/plpmblcousb22.html

It has the Prolific PL-3507 chipset (not sure which version/firmware, but I just purchased the enclosure 2 weeks ago, so I assume the latest?)

I am running WinXP SP2 and the 3540a is using the 1.W5 firmware. I'm connecting the enclosure to my laptop via a generic Firewire Cardbus adapter with a NEC chipset.

My problem is that none of my burning software detects the 3540 drive. However, the drive and enclosure are recognized by Windows (when turned on, the drive shows up as a seperate drive in My Computer; though in Device Manager, under CD/DVD Devices, it lists Pl-3501 IEEE1394 Storage Device instead of the actual dvdr? I believe my old dvr-105 in an enclosure used to actually show up in Device Manager?)

Further, the drive is functional and I can play DVDs on it as well as rip DVDs using DvdDecrypter. Using Nero InfoTool, it actually is detected and InfoTool lists the NEC DVD_RW ND-3540A, current firmware, and all the supported write features are correctly checked.

However, once I start up Nero to burn, the only writer I can select is the Image Recorder. Similarly, with DvdShrink and InstantCopy, the drive is never an option to write with.


I've searched through the forums, but didn't come across any answers and I apologize if this issue has been covered before somewhere. I greatly appreciate any help/advice/insight anyone can offer. Please let me know if there is futher information I can provide that will be of assistance in diagnosing the issue.

I haven't tried hooking the drive/enclosure up via USB2 because I'd really like to get it to work via Firewire as my laptop only has 2 precious USB slots.


Thanks in advance for any and all help!

Edit:

I've since swapped the drive out of the enclosure into a desktop using IDE (set as master) and I'm having the same issues: drive detected, can rip/read, detected with InfoTools, but does not show up as a selectable option with Nero.


Thanks again for suggestions!

Do you have the latest Nero 6.6.0.15a?

I have this kind of problem once in my other system with Nero 6.6.0.14 installed and no system ASPI. Installing system ASPI fix the problem, however I would recommend to update Nero first.

zevia, thanks for the tip!

i upgraded my nero to the current version

now i have a new issue, however

when the 3540/enclosure is on/recognized, when i execute nero, the process begins running, but the program never starts.. i then have to reboot my computer and it shows nero as not responding


however, if i execute nero when the enclosure/3540 is off, it starts fine but obviously only allows for image recorder


i was able to start nero and then turn on the enclosure.. nero then recognized it and i was able to burn a test data dvd at 8x on some old ritekg04 media i have (took about 12 minutes.. is this normal?)


i'm glad that the drive works, but it's sort of irritating the nero not responding startup... if anyone has encountered this or knows what's going on, i'd appreciate any tips!