For some reason - I appear to have lost the ability to read CD's on either the burner or DVD player in the XP machine.

I suspect the DVD player may be faulty - however, when the drives are uninstalled and it is fooled into thinking they are ordinary cd drives - the burner will read my cd - when I use the dvd drive - it actually hangs and neither will work. I have tried removing, uninstalling, upgrading xp installation again - and still the same? Any ideas? Virus?

Thanks

P.S -Burner is secondary master and on its own channel. And they have both worked for the last 2 years?

from my experience your lucky that they lasted as long as they did. I myself play lots of games and usually have to buy new drives once a year.The thing that you have to remember is that they have small motors spinning at high rates and also that the lasers that are used to read CD's can also be thrown off or get dirty and not read. My advise is to spend a little more money on them because the cheaper ones usually only last 6 mths or less.

Hmmm. I would normally agree - particularly in the case of the DVD - I am not sure for the burner...for 2 reasons - 1) It hasn't been used much 2) When XP see's it as a normal CD drive - it works without issue....I'll replace the DVD - see if a new device works.....it is showing classic signs of hardware failure.....

Thanks

Well I hate to tell you this but I had the same problem with a burner, don't remember what brand it was but the computer would see it and read CD's but it wouldn't burn nomore and I only used it 4-6 times in a 6 mth period.Was not ery happy with that but brought a Lite-On and have not had any problems with it yet (crossing fingers lol)

When the PC states its CD RW it won' do anything - when it states its a normal cd it plays normal cd's?

I have just bought an external USB combo drive - which works and I can drop all my data onto CD - in case I wipe and start again.

Thanks