Daily Answers: Resolving System Crashes that Result from Bad Services or Drivers

When I start my Windows 2000 Professional system, I receive the message STOP 0x000000D1:DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL on a blue screen. I suspect that Roxio's Easy CD Creator 4.0 is the culprit because I installed it just before this problem appeared. How can I fix this problem?

You can resolve the problem you describe by downloading and installing the free update for Easy CD Creator Deluxe 4.0 or upgrading to version 5.0. Visit the Roxio Web site for more information (http://www.roxio.com/support). Regardless of which version of Easy CD Creator you decide to use, be sure to run at least Win2K Service Pack 2 (SP2) on your system.

As the Microsoft article "Windows 2000 May Display an Error Message on a Blue Screen with Adaptec CD-R or CD-RW Software" (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q237468) describes, you can also fix your existing installation*which gives us an opportunity to discuss the important topic of resolving blue screens that result from bad services or drivers. I'll present the three most common service or driver solutions and provide specifics that pertain to your Roxio software.

The first solution involves stopping problem drivers from Control Panel. This process requires that you successfully start the computer in Safe mode, which you access by pressing F8 during the initial Win2K boot-loader process. After you boot the system into Safe mode, log on as an Administrator. Next, run the Control Panel System applet, select the Hardware tab, then click Device Manager. Select View, Show hidden devices from the menu bar. Double-click Non-Plug and Play Drivers, right-click Cdr4vsd, which is a driver that the Roxio software installs, then click Properties. Select the Driver tab, click Stop, select Disabled from the Type drop-down list, then click OK. Repeat the process for the Cdrpwd and Cdudf drivers.

The second solution calls for registry edits. Always back up your system and registry before making any changes to the registry. This method also requires that you boot your computer into Safe mode and log on as an Administrator. Then, open a registry editor and locate the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services subkey, which contains three subkeys that relate to the Roxio software: CDR4VSD, CDRPWD, and CDUDF. In each of these subkeys, set the Start value to 4 (which sets a disabled state).

The third solution involves using the Recovery Console (RC) to disable problem drivers. Use this procedure when you can't start the computer in Safe mode. Start your computer by booting from the Win2K Setup 3.5" disks, the Win2K CD-ROM, or—if you've already installed the RC on your system—the Recovery option. When the Welcome to Setup screen appears, press R, then press C to start the RC. Type

listsvc

Log on to your computer and use the RC's Disable command to disable the drivers Cdr4vsd, Cdrpwd, and Cdudf. For example, to disable the Cdrpwd driver, type

disable cdr4vsd
exit

After the system reboots, acknowledge the aspi32.sys error message, then uninstall Easy CD Creator and DirectCD.

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