Won't boot into Vista while Sony DVD-RW drive plugged in

[klein]

I have an external sony drive model number DRX-840U that worked great before I bought a full copy of Vista and installed via Boot Camp. At the Apple store, they were able to fully install Vista and everything worked great. When I got home I hooked everything back up like before and Vista would load into a white screen, freezing there. OS X would load fine all the while. So, I went back to the Apple store where they wiped my HD and reinstalled Leapoard and Vista and everything was peachy. Thank god I thought. Well, came home, hooked everything up and the same thing happened. So, I decided to mimic the set up at the Apple Store with just my keyboard and mouse hooked up and voila, Vista loaded perfectly. So through a process of elimination I hooked up my external HD, printer, and lastly my Sony DVD-RW drive. It was the Sony drive that made it not work. Ideas?

I need it because I use the "mini disks" for school and of course they don't work in the vertical slot drive on my iMac.

I have an iMac that I bought in March and have 10.5.4 loaded onto it and all the most recent updates.

 

[lifeafter2am]

Stupid question, but can you load Vista and then plug the drive in? It's not really clear in your post.

 

[klein]

Okay, so I started Vista and then plugged in the drive and it worked great. With it still plugged in, I restarted from Vista and held down the option key to choose either Mac or Vista and I chose Vista. It then froze up on me with the icons still there and my arrow where I had clicked. This is how it was before.

 

[klein]

Another thing-

I unplugged the USB cable from the back of the drive and restarted the computer, held down option key, and chose Vista and it worked perfectly. It seems that for me to want to use the drive I will just have to plug it in after I start up Vista. Is there any other options?

 

[lifeafter2am]

Another thing-

I unplugged the USB cable from the back of the drive and restarted the computer, held down option key, and chose Vista and it worked perfectly. It seems that for me to want to use the drive I will just have to plug it in after I start up Vista. Is there any other options?

Somebody else may be able to point you in a direction, but seriously, is it that much of a pain to unplug it? I mean, at least you can get it work.

 

[klein]

I could just unplug it everytime but I would rather not. I would really like to know what is causing it. There are no drivers to be had from the Sony website because they said it is just plug and play.

If there is something as simple as a dvd drive causing my computer to freeze every time, I would really like to know what the cause is.

 

[klein]

bump.

 

[Henvan20]

If there is something as simple as a dvd drive causing my computer to freeze every time, I would really like to know what the cause is.

Well, the cause is the DVD drive. ;D

Seriously though, I dont think youll find a solution. I say this because:

1. Windows support in bootcamp is not super
2. Windows vista is pretty bad also
3. Add 3rd party hardware PLUS the fact that its a boot device that vista will try boot from, while bootcamp won't allow this

End result: You have a pretty big screwup. As said before, just plug the device in and out. I know its a pain, but its just one of those things I guess.