I have an NEC DVD drive connected to an IDE to SATA converter. It works in 2003 server... it works in XPs safe mode... It does NOT work in XP. XP recognizes the drive and says that the device is working properly. But when I put a disc in the disc does not spin. It spins and loads and I can read it just fine in both safe mode and in all modes of 2003 server.
 
I'm running an E6400 on a Gigabyte DS3. The DS3 uses Gigabyte and Jmicron controllers. I've tried their drivers (which are installed in 2003 server) didn't work. Tried uninstalling their drivers. Didn't work. Copied the ATAPI from 2003 server to XP. Didn't work. Changed as many registry entries as you can imagine. None of them have worked.
 
Could it be that ASPI is causing the problem? That's the only thing I can think of. I don't have ASPI installed on 2003 server and it might not run in safe mode. But I'm having trouble uninstalling ASPI as well.
 
I've been at it for WEEKS now. I know all drivers load from HKLM--->SYSTEM--->CurrentControlSet
but I can't figure out what's causing the problem. The drive will start to spin because of the bios, then it will stop when SOMETHING is loaded in Windows (don't know what that something is... tried /sos in boot.ini but couldn't see that particular driver) then it should pick up shortly thereafter like it does in 2003 but it does not.
 
Help me! Help me please! I really need this to work. I have to work tomorrow. Reinstalling windows is not an option, nor is buying a controller card. I'm this friggin' close I just did one more clue...