Some Answers

[scs0]

I recently installed WXP using the NTFS file system and now neither SmartRipper or DVD Decryptor work on my system. I get errors related to ASPI. I have absolutely no idea what ASPI is, but DVD Decryptor says I can use ForceASPI to somehow workaround this problem.

First off, is ForceASPI compatible with NTFS on WXP? (Sorry, I don't even know if that question makes any sense :-)
What is ForceASPI? Is it a DLL, an app, a driver, a key exchange handler or something else? Will installing it affect anything other than the behavior of the DVD ripping apps? And, finally, what's an rar file? ForceASPI downloads as an RAR file and I've never even heard of this format before, even Windows didn't know what to do wit it! WXP has a handy feature for searching for apps to handle unknown filetypes and it found a couple apps and one of them seems to imply that an RAR is nothing more than a compression format. If this is the case, I think it would be best to stick with standard compression files, like zip, for compatibility.

If a RAR file is nothing more than a compression format, what's the advantage? I'm on a puny 26.4 connection and the RAR file downloaded really quick, even if a zip version is 5X larger it would still download in a reasonable amount of time and wouldn't give people any headaches on opening it! (Just a suggestion)

Thanks

[scs0]

I found a zip version of ForceASPI at this location from 11-2-2001:

http://files.absnet.no/Multimedia/Tools/Video%20CD/

I installed the Win2K version that is packed inside the installer and after a reboot I am successfully able to use SmartRipper.

As to what ASPI actually does, I'm just as clueless as ever, but if anyone else had my problem on a WXP system, you might want to give this a try.

Good luck

BTW: I don't know if its just my imagination or what, but SmartRipper seems to be ripping through this CD at a much faster pace than it did under W98-SE onto a FAT based harddisk!

[Doom9]

force aspi is basically the adaptec aspi layer v4.60. It works on any OS afaik (Win9x/ME/WinNT/W2K/WinXP). It isn't a single file but a collection of a couple of files.. 2 dlls, 1 .sys file and an exe (plus the installer and documents). Basically.. the adaptec version of that layer would only install if an adaptec scsi controller was detected... forceaspi on the other hand can be installed on any machine.

what's the advantage of rar over zip? basically it compresses better. Now please don't turn this into a war about compression formats.. files are published in the format they are initially distributed and I'm not going to repack the files just because somebody doesn't like rar.

[twistee]

I have had problems using winXP home ed. I try and use any ripping program and it has issues. It also has issues doing anything! You would think a p4 2ghz would be able to do anything, but WinXP is able to stuff it up. It even slows down the encoding to about 5 fps...I dont know how to fix these problems...except for getting rid of XP and getting 2k.