Alcohol 120% - Malfunctioning Physical Drive

So, I found this site through Google and did a forum search here to try and find an answer to my problem, which was unsuccessful. I'm hoping I didn't miss anything, because I would like help trying to find a solution to my predicament. This forum seems to be exactly what I was looking for, so I hope you guys can help!

Problem: My CD burner (Unknown make) and DVD drive (Samsung) have stopped working in Windows, though work through Alcohol 120%. Windows still recognizes they exist, but do not know when a disc is inserted.

Summary: To start off, I've been using Alcohol 120% for about a year now on my Windows XP Professional SP2 computer (It might be relevant). Well, I recently wanted to conserve resources when it boots Windows, so I disabled most of the starting processes through 'msconfig' including one from the program mentioned named "StarWindService". I'm unsure of the exact purpose of "StarWindService" but what I have found is that it manages Alcohol's virtual drives. The only reason I find this relevant is that the problem began shortly after I had performed these tasks.

Well, my physical disc drives no longer work properly. This becomes a major issue when I need, as I do now, to burn CDs. The most interesting part, however, is that I can still use Alcohol 120% to burn images to CDs. Windows, such as WMP and Explorer, recognize that there is, in fact, a drive, but do not recognize when I insert a CD, be it blank or otherwise.

The issue began about a month ago, but I didn't realize the situation with the program until I needed to use it recently.


Thank you very much for any support that you can provide!

Well, I recently wanted to conserve resources when it boots Windows, so I disabled most of the starting processes through 'msconfig' including one from the program mentioned named "StarWindService". I'm unsure of the exact purpose of "StarWindService" but what I have found is that it manages Alcohol's virtual drives. The only reason I find this relevant is that the problem began shortly after I had performed these tasks.


You did select to run StarWindService at startup again didn't you? That would definately be problematic if what you say about that process is true.

You did select to run StarWindService at startup again didn't you? That would definately be problematic if what you say about that process is true.

Aye. The moment I realized that the drives weren't working, I immediately enabled it again; without success.