Help - Plextor DVD Drive Failure!

[Loafsta]

So I just bought a beautiful new Plextor PX-708A DVD+/-RW drive and I'm dyin', cause every time I try to insert a DVD my computer crashes. If you can't see the irony in a DVD drive not accepting DVDs, then there's trouble. Anyway, Plextor website support says to get rid of creative disk detector, which I've done (in fact I've removed everything from Creative that I can), but that hasn't helped and I can't figure out what else could be the problem. To be honest, my old DVD drive, a pioneer, also used to cause crashes pretty regularly when I inserted DVDs. I just got in the habit of not using it because the trouble started shortly after I updated its firmware, so I assumed it just didn't take the firmware upgrade and I was f****d. Now I don't know what to think. My setup is an Athlon 2000XP, 512MB RAM, Plexwriter 12/10/32A, Plextor PX-708A, a three hard drives (two in a raid array that haven't given me trouble yet), Audigy soundcard, Gainward ti4600 video, and an ASUS NForce2 motherboard. I;ve tried losing the other CD drive, and I've tried it with the Pioneer DVD drive, but no luck. Any idea what the problem could be? It runs fine until I put a DVD in the drive, then it shuts down immediately (don't even get a bluescreen). If I let it restart, it runs until I select a user (Windows XP Home), then shuts down as its loading (unless I pull the DVD out of the drive before then). HELP!!!

[pam123]

Messed with the firmware did you ?
Remove the DVD drive and just use the new Plextor and see what happens.
If all is good you need to spend $40 for a new DVD drive, if it's not working you may be looking at a reformat in addition to that.

[Loafsta]

I did update the firmware on the new drive (it was recommended by several people on other sites who own the drive, not to mention Plextor itself). I've also tried the system with only the new drive installed, so its not the old drive that's killing it. Maybe it was the firmware update, but, to be honest, I doubt it. I think its a software problem, I'm just not sure what the problem is.

[pam123]

Hmmnnn.
Does anything show in Event Viewer ?
You still sound like a hardware problem but it may not be the drive.

[Loafsta]

Plextor support managed to clear it up for me. I had an old packetCD driver that was causing the crash. Apparently UDF related utilities cause crashes with some DVD players. Thank god it wasn't a hardware issue.

[pam123]

That's one I never came across before.
Nice work from Plextor and you for seeing it through.