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I have been getting the following error on my computer for the last couple months, and I have been unable to figure out what is going on:

\SystemRoot\SysWow64\Drivers\ASPI32.SYS has been blocked from loading due to incompatibility with this system. Please contact your software vendor for a compatible version of the driver.

Checking forums, I found a link to a microsoft support document: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/182542/en-us however, it only says to "find the program that tried to install the 32bit version of the driver"

The symptoms of this are a bit disconcerting, namely a freeze every now and then requiring a hard reboot, and both my DVDRW and Blu-Ray RW drives unable to be detected by...well anything other than the Device Manager which informs me to re-install the latest drivers for both drives (which already have the most current drivers).

Anyone have any insight as to where I might start looking to resolve this issue?

Outside of a few Steam Games, I haven't installed any new programs recently, I ran a few scans for malware and viruses and got no hits.

32-bit Windows drivers are not compatible with 64-bit Windows.

This driver is sometimes installed by legacy 32-bit applications which need to interact with the CD/DVD drive; maybe that will help you narrow things down? If any of your recently installed games were Steam ports of older games which were originally distributed on CD/DVD-ROM, it's conceivable that one of them could have dragged ASPI32.SYS in by mistake.

Have you tried just renaming the ASPI32.SYS file to prevent the system from finding it?

Uninstalled a few programs I didn't know were there, and the issue remains. Both my optical drives show a "A driver (service) for this device has been disabled. An alternate driver may be providing this functionality. (Code 32)" error in Device Manager.

Renamed ASPI32.sys, and the issue continues.

Sounds like it might be a variation on the old UpperFilters/LowerFilters debacle. Perhaps this KB article will help: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060#win7fix

So I have figured out a little more with the symptoms. My machine routinely freezes and crashes after watching any video. At least that was what happened last night, unfortunately I haven't been able to troubleshoot it much, but when I get home I am going to have to run startup repair and checkdisk. My machine froze after watching a video on vlc player, then once I got it up and running again, another video caused a BSOD.

This is starting to sound more like general system stability issues. Corrupted system, malware, or failing hardware (motherboard/RAM).

just brew it! wrote:

This is starting to sound more like general system stability issues. Corrupted system, malware, or failing hardware (motherboard/RAM).

Agreed.

If this is Windows 7 do the following:

1. Launch Windows Memory Diagnostics to check for defective memory. (This is under Administrative Tools)
2. Launch a command prompt with elevated privileges and do a chkdsk c: /f (where C: is the system drive)
3. Launch a command prompt with elevated privileges and do a sfc /scannow
4. Download and run the System Update Readiness Tool.

If defective memory or disks are found you should not move any further in the process until that is fixed.

Ok so results of the following actions taken:

1. Mem Diagnostics - passed, no issues detected
2. checkdsk - passed, though hung for 2 hours on phase 4 (since I was doing a check on a 256 GB OCZ Vertex 4 this was a bit disconcerting. Usually I only see that long of time spent on very large drives 1TB or greater)
3. sfc / scannow: passed, 100% verified
4. did not have enough time last night to run this, but I will tonight.

Unfortunately, after the checkdisk, the machine auto-restarted and told me there was an issue recognizing my 1 TB data drive. It started a checkdisk on its own, but immediately froze on the starting screen.

All in all, I am guessing that my venerable 1 TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 is finally biting the dust. I noticed that the majority of the issues I found were when I was watching a video that was stored on my data drive. I am going to try grabbing all the data off it. I will see how the SSD does without the data drive attached, and if everything is kosher, I will wipe the data drive clean, throw it back into the system, and see how we do.

derTorbs wrote:

Ok so results of the following actions taken:

1. Mem Diagnostics - passed, no issues detected
2. checkdsk - passed, though hung for 2 hours on phase 4 (since I was doing a check on a 256 GB OCZ Vertex 4 this was a bit disconcerting. Usually I only see that long of time spent on very large drives 1TB or greater)
3. sfc / scannow: passed, 100% verified
4. did not have enough time last night to run this, but I will tonight.

Unfortunately, after the checkdisk, the machine auto-restarted and told me there was an issue recognizing my 1 TB data drive. It started a checkdisk on its own, but immediately froze on the starting screen.

All in all, I am guessing that my venerable 1 TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 is finally biting the dust. I noticed that the majority of the issues I found were when I was watching a video that was stored on my data drive. I am going to try grabbing all the data off it. I will see how the SSD does without the data drive attached, and if everything is kosher, I will wipe the data drive clean, throw it back into the system, and see how we do.

After you got the data out, run a complete diagnostic (long/full test) using Samsung/Seagate's own tools. If you like, you can also run HDTune or HDAT2 (from UBCD).

Awesome, thanks for the tip. I'll let ya know how it goes.

Bad news,

Guess it was my ssd boot drive that was the issue. Probably should have guessed since all the errors I was getting pointed to OS corruption. Ran checkdisk, startup repair. Still blue screened.

HD Tune showed the following status:

Raw Read Error Rate: failed
Retired Block Count: attention
Reallocated Event Count: warning

Booted to HDAT2, ran a scan and attempt repair of bad sectors using the verify/write/verify session. Showed no bad sectors.

After a successful boot after the HDAT2 session, the computer lasted 15 min before blue screening, and auto-launching the Startup Repair. which failed, and then my Mobo firmware popped up with a SMART status as failed for the drive.

I really dont know where to go from here. I might just try reinstalling the OS after re-formatting the drive, but that isnt a guarantee since it seems the drive itself is having issues. I cannot afford a new ssd unfortunately, though prices have dropped.

Looks like you are getting hardware-level errors on the drive. Reformatting and reinstalling is unlikely to help; I'd actually be kind of surprised if you successfully make it all the way through the install.

That's what I expected. Is it usual for SSDs to have such a short lifespan? I know they have a limit of read/write operations before they die...

You didn't mention the specific make/model of the SSD or how old it is. Some are more failure-prone than others; there have also been reports of some SSDs which can react very badly if the power goes out during a write.

Sorry, it is a 256 GB OCZ Vertex 3 circa 2011

Early Vertex 3 drives were known for having firmware issues. Did you ever upgrade the firmware?

I have not. In fact I was unaware one could do such a thing. If I have the drive hooked up via usb harddrive adapter, can I update the firmware that way?

I do not think a firmware update will work via a USB adapter, it likely needs a direct SATA connection. I also do not know if it will work (or if it will help even if it does work) after the drive has already started to fail. But if the drive is already effectively a paperweight, it can't hurt to try.

Edit: Here's their firmware download page: http://ocz.com/consumer/download/firmware