CD/DVD Drive "Win32" Error - WTF

[Fenna]

I'm working on a 4-year-old Dell that I reinstalled about 6 months ago. Out of the blue an error has cropped up, and after researching and trying some fixes, I'm stumped.

The CD/DVD ROM drive reads and plays music CDs just fine. When a CD containing an executable, particularly a autorun.exe is inserted, the drive folder opens and shows the contents (does not autorun). Upon trying to run the autorun, or any .exe file (either via the "run" command or double-clicking icons, etc.) windows presents an error stating that the file (not just the drive letter) is "not a valid win32 application." At this point the drive hangs and will no longer recognize any disc until the PC is rebooted. All test discs have been checked on other PCs to verify they work fine, too.

All connections were checked and rechecked, they're sound. I replaced the drive with a new out-of-box drive, same problem precisely. Nothing was changed from factory install regarding bios settings, IDE placement, slave/master, etc. This just popped up at some point in the past 6 months.

This leads me to believe it is software related. All AVG/Windows Defender/Spybot scans come up clean. To my knowledge the PC has never had a virus.

One thing I haven't swapped out is the IDE cable (didn't have one with me). Could a bad cable cause such a specific symptom? At this point I'm thinking a reinstall should fix it, but I'd rather avoid it.

I've tried every solution I've found in an hour or more of Google searching and forum reading. Anybody have any other clues?

[Soreali]

try this..
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/file_assoc.htm


do the EXE file association fix.


Usually happens when a virus messed up the registry.. see if that'll work.

[Fenna]

Thanks! That's something I hadn't considered. I'll give it a shot.