If you have recently tried to install Daemon Tools 4, you may have encountered the error “Virtual SCSI driver not detected”, preventing Daemon Tools from starting after installation is complete. On a Windows 2000 SP4 system, wander into Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> System, then click on the Hardware tab. Finally, click Device Manager…. If you see that a device under SCSI and RAID controllers has an exclamation point (!), you win.

To resolve the issue, you can now right click on the device with the exclamation point and select Properties. Now click the Driver tab and click Update Driver… In the Upgrade Device Driver Wizard, click Next, Search for a suitable…, and Next. Check only Specify a location and enter the path c:\winnt\system32 on a Windows 2000 Professional system and click OK. (The path probably varies on a Windows XP system.) Windows should find a SCSI/RAID Host Controller. Click Next and Yes when warned the device driver is not digitally signed. Now, finish the process by clicking Finish.

Windows will probably want to restart. Allow it to restart once it’s convenient. You should find that Daemon Tools v4 is finally able to install a virtual CD-ROM drive, which will of course require you to reboot again. However, once your reboots are complete Daemon Tools should be working correctly.

If you made the mistake of installing Anti-Blaxx, you may wish to review a thread in the Daemon Tools forum with a walkthrough for getting Daemon Tools v4 to work after Anti-Blaxx has broken everything on Windows XP. On Windows 2000 I did not need to complete past step four as both applications seemed to uninstall without leaving any fatal leftovers.

Enjoy!

(And, of course, always backup anything you consider critical before messing with Microsoft Windows device drivers. If your system becomes nonbootable, it isn’t my problem.)

Update, June 28th. Given how nasty the SPTD driver used by Daemon Tools v4 is, I don’t think I’ll ever install it again. It isn’t worth reinstalling Windows to recover from a registry key corrupted beyond repair by a poorly written, obscure third party driver.

SPTD: “failed to opn config key”. How about, no?

Back to Daemon Utils v3 it is. It worked just fine.