My CD drive isn't working.

[Jaffar]

This is what i do: I put the CD in and then nothing happens. I have Windows XP, Please help.

[*b*]

you may have disabled autorun. open the Main Computer icon, and double click your CD drive (it should have an image of a hard drive with a CD over it). that'll open the CD for you. or, at least it should

[deathbyhokie]

depending on what you've installed recently, that may affect it as well. for example, if i install the newest incarnation of roxio on my computer, my CD drive stops functioning. it works fine once roxio is un-installed though

[Jaffar]

How do I found what I installed recently. My dad is always updating stuff.

[Masamune]

Then tell your dad not to fix shit that isn't broken. If you have Norton (I think it's Norton anyway) you should have a log of things that you've installed. And no, I don't know how to get to it if it even exists.

[Gerudo]

How do I found what I installed recently
its called "using your brain". i dunno bout all the others here, but i can keep track of whats installed on my comp.

i bet your cdrom drive is working, but autorun is disabled. can you access the contents of the disc?

[AtmaWeapon]

Auto-run is stupid anyway. Open up My Computer and tell us if you can see the contents of the CD-ROM. If you can, problem solved. If not, then we'll move to the next step.

[Jaffar]

It's not auto run. It dosent even know that my CD is in there. It wont read the contents.

[gdorf]

My Computer -> Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs -> Sort by last used

From there you'll get a pretty good idea of what has recently been installed. If there is any type of burning or cd accessing software I recommend uninstalling it and seeing if that is the problem.

Don't fret man: worst case scenario is that your problem lies in the hardware. Even then it is minimal cost to get a new cdrom drive nowadays. (especially if it isn't cdrw)

[goKi]

cdrw can be picked up for about $35-40AU now, so it's as cheap as dirt. If you cant figure it out, no point stressing, they are one of the cheapest components of a computer.

[Ich]

If you recently opened the case, perhaps checking if some of the cables got bumped loose is in order. It may not be this, as it seems you can still open the tray, but it's something to check before you buy a new one. Also, with a program called Tweak UI, you can control and change a bunch of things on your computer. In the tab "Paranoia" under the category "Things that happen behind your back" you can turn on and off autorun for audio or data CD's.

[Sylvan_Wizard]

Check to see if your computer can see the drive in the device manager. It may indicate a problem there. You probably just need to reinstall the driver. If it's there and has a problem, try simply removing the device from the device manager, and reboot. Windows will detect it and try to install the correct driver for it. Then go to windowsupdate.microsoft.com to make sure you have the latest driver and any other updates.

[sivart0]

also, try opening the bios when you start the computer and goto "auto detect hard disk"

[Sylvan_Wizard]

DON'T do that!
That is completely unnecessary. If you can boot your computer, it detects the hard drive just fine. It's the CD drive that's problematic, not the hard drive.