DISCInfo is a freeware program to display hardware informations from and ATAPI/SCSI device under Windows operating system. Basicly what it does it that it sends SCSI commands to the device and retrives the information from them. The most usefull thing of the program is to show usefull informations about a DVD-ROM devices. It can check current region status. If the drive is region free it will state No Lock Detected but if the drive has region protection (RPC-2) it will show you the currect settings, like how many changes are left and curently set region. With the latest version program is also capable of using identified info about a CD/DVD drive to pass parameters to main firmware page and look for the firmware update files on it. It can recognise external USB/Firewire HDD/CD/DVD devices (SPTI access only) and for easy sharing of the files it enabled grabing the screenshots of the program and internaly save them to a file without any extra image manipulation tools.

How to:
SPTI/ASPI access
Since the version 1.5.0 the program can use two diffrent ways of contacting the drives for into. Please read this explanation carefully:

SPTI:
If I check the access log files for this page I can see that over 90% of all users are using NT based operating systems, wich include M$ Windows NT,2000,XP or 2003. Under this operating systems M$ added SPTI (Scsi Pass Through Interface) drive access wich basicly means that you can easily communicate with the drives without the need of any other drivers. DISCInfo now fully supports it. There are some things you all need to know about it.
First of all SPTI only works if the logged in user who runs DISCInfo has administrator rights. DISCInfo checks for this and if it can't find any drives you will get an error message. Relogin with a user that has administrator right or install ASPI wich works under nonadmin users.
Second most important thing about SPTI is that the communication between drives and DISCInfo can be intercepted by other programs and therefore fool the DISCInfo by showing incorrect informations. The best example of a program that can fool DISCInfo is Region Killer made by Elby company wich is used for bypassing the windows region protection and fooling software DVD player that the current inserted media is the one that player expects it to be. This is best seen on the RPC-1 (region free) DVD-ROM drives that, if the Region Killer is running, in DISCInfo shows them as RPC-2 drives. So in order to get the proper informations from the drives under SPTI access, disable programs like Region Killer!.

ASPI:
Driver originaly written by Adaptec. There isn't much to say about it. It works under all Windows operating system. I'd recommend using version 4.60 wich you can find under download. You need ASPI driver installed if you have operating system like Windows 98 otherwise DISCInfo will not work. It can also work on Windows NT or newer and if you have it installed then you can select SPTI or ASPI under the DISCInfo menus. ASPI doesn't work for external drives like the USB/Firewire ones. So if you have them and use Windows 98 you will not be able to see them. Also program like Region Killer can in some cases fool DISCInfo with ASPI access to show incorrect RPC informations. It's advise to disable programs like that before running DISCInfo.

DISCInfo will atumaticly detect operating system and check for APSI driver. Under NT based OS it will automaticly try to use SPTI access but if ASPI is installed you will be able to switch to it later from the menu. If you have Windows 98 operating system then ASPI driver is urgently required and if you don't have it the program will not run and exit with an error message. Here are the keyboard shortcuts curently working if you press them on the main program view:

- S or CTRL+S: Save CD/DVD Info - Shows a save window wich will save the informations about CD/DVD drives into a file.
- G or CTRL+G: Grab Screenshot- Takes a screenshot of the main window and displays a save dialog to save it to a file.
- D or CTRL+D: Show All Devices - This refreshes the program to display all the ATAPI/SCSI devices inside the system and not only CD or DVD drives. Press D or CTRL+D to show back only CD/DVD drives.
- C or CTRL+C: Capabilities Info - Displays a capabilities page for a CD or DVD drive only. In that page you can see what a drive is capable of doing. This command only works for CD or DVD drives. You can also take a screenshot of it by pressing Take Screenshot button on that window.
- F or CTRL+F: Firmware Update - Displays a firmware update page for a CD or DVD drive only. In that page you can choose with wich parameters you wish to search. This command only works for CD or DVD drives. It uses main firmware page database data wich Arzeno fills up as much as he can.
- A or CTRL+A: About DISCInfo - Display a nice about window with my thanks to the one who helped with the program.
- X or CTRL+X or ESCAPE: Program exit - To close the program.

Also in the menu is the ability to change the access drive wich will be used to communicate with the drives. You can select ASPI or SPTI access. If either one of them is not avaible it will be grayed out and you will not be able to select it. There is also an option there to refresh all the drives again. When selected it will start to query the drives again with the curently selected access driver.

Firmware Search option
Info that vendors burn into the firmware/drive can be diffrent that the one written on the box when you buy them. This is usualy the problem with OEM drives. So program could identify the drive as IDE DVD-ROM 16X or something like this while the drive is actualy something else. Search will definetly return no results in this case. There is nothing I can do about it. Also lot of people have Virtual drives installed, like Nero VD, CloneCD VD, Daemon Tools,... Since my program can also identify them it's pointless to search firmwares for them.

Another thing are the vendor names. The search window has two options. One is Vendor and one is Model. Both are read from within a drive. It may not be the same as the ones we have written in the database. I would advise to search only by model. Will be more precise. Also note that you need a web browser because program display a web page with the results seperatly from the program itself (it opens a browser window to tell it simply.

The license of this software is Freeware, you can free download and free use this dvd utility software.