OK, I will try to answer all those questions one by one.
1. Creative drivers: I guess at
www.creative.com but don't take it for granted... their customer support sucks THAT much. Putting aside the official Creative drivers there are unofficial, unsigned ones at Sourceforge which are pretty stable, but they aren't good at all for gaming- so it's up to you if you will use them or not.
2. ASPI: The link given above is fine, but ForceASPI 1.7 does not unstall 4.7X in an 100% clean way. So, better first grab ForceASPI 1.8 (
http://members.fortunecity.com/forceaspi18/ ), use "killaspi" to remove what you've installed, reboot, and only then use ForceASPI 1.7 which installs 4.60.1021 by "instaspi" batch file (reboot again). Adaptec claims that 4.60.1021 is not good for XP, and 4.7X is the right one to use, but our experience here says just the opposite!
3. Removing RecordNow or Sonic-something is done the usual way, but for some reason the drivers are left behind! Use the attachment to COMPLETELY remove Prassi engine powered software (requires reboot). This is made by Sonic, but for some reason it was NEVER made public- plz don't ask me why, I'm not a Sonic affiliate...
4. Setting the burner as master and the DVD-ROM as slave is either extremely simple, or extremely fussy- take it as you feel it. You have to open the computer case, and set the burner back plate jumper to the "master" position, while setting the analogous jumper of the DVD-ROM to the "slave" position. If you use an 80-wire IDE cable you must also swap the IDE cable connectors between the two drives, if you use a 40-wire one this is not needed.
Ah, and finally, if the "troublemaker" is RecordNowMax or DX I would personally remove Nero instead, but it's just me...