matsushita dvd-ram UJ-815A corrupt drivers

Hi,

I have a laptop running Windows XP service pack 2, with an internal matsushita dvd-ram UJ-815A. There was a powercut whilst I copying a CD (sadly, I did not have the battery plugged in ho hum). When I re-booted, my D: drive had disappeared.

The UJ-815A drive is listed in device manager but with a yellow exclamation mark. The device status is:

"Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39). Click Troubleshoot to start the troubleshooter for this device."

I tried deleting the DVD Drive from device manager and reinstalling it (both from add new hardware and by rebooting). It finds the drive, but it doesn't install correctly, again with the above error message.

I have tried installing an updated driver from panasonic.co.jp (XPDrv5021NEN.exe) but I get the error message: Error Type: cannot get drive / Error Code: 071 - I guess this is because the drive isn't installed and the file is I downloaded a driver UPDATER.

I have tried a 'generic' driver DVD-RAM_XP_5.0.1.8.exe which supposedly works with the UJ-815A; this file installed with no error messages, but the DVD Drive is still not accessible, again with the above error message.

I tried the 'update driver' option in device manager, both 'automatically' and 'specific list or location' - pointing it to various directories (WINDOWS, WINDOWS/SYSTEM32, WINDOWS/SYSTEM32/DRIVERS) but I get the message 'The Wizard could not find a better match for your hardware than the software you currently have installed' (which is making me very angry as the software clearly isn't installed in the first place! Arrgh-)

I tried installing 'gear-driver-support.exe' mostly out of desperation as I wasn't sure if this would work or not. I also tried unpacking this archived file and pointing the 'update driver' option to the files I unpacked from it, but again it could find no driver which was a better match.

(I do not even know if WinXP uses .inf files for drivers like older versions of Windows, where these sort of problems could be easily sorted out - I resisted moving to XP for a long time, for obvious reasons).

If it helps the driver file details currently assigned to the DVD drive are:

cdrom.sys
GEARAspiWDM.sys
imapi.sys
pfc.sys
redbook.sys
storprop.dll

I have tried deleting these files; they are recreated, with the exception of GEARAspiWDM.sys and pfc.sys which does not change the problem anyway.

I suppose I need maybe a) driver files that I can install using the update driver option rather than as an executable, and which will be 'a better match' than the current, corrupt file or b) a way to delete the current, corrupt driver files AND then new, working drivers.

Or maybe I need something I don't know about?!

Thanks in advance - any help will be gratefully received - seriously.

Ade

PS: Sorry for the long post I thought it best to give as much info as possible.

1. System restore?
2. Loading last known good configuration? (the way to do it: http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000626.htm)
3. Windows restore disk (supplied with the Laptop) applying it or just looking for the driver there?

Alex - system restore did the job perfectly. I didn't even know such a tool existed (I had explored the laptop restore CD & tried the 'last known good configuration' but with no success).

Anyway problem sorted many thanks for the advice.

Cheers,

Adrian

You are most welcome. I am glad you have "got back" your Matsushita.