CD-ROM drive suddenly stops recognizing music CDs

Question

Good evening everyone,

A couple of days ago I was ripping a few of my music CDs into Windows Media Player 11 on Windows XP and the drive suddenly stopped recognizing music CDs. It would still play data CDs just fine, but music CDs will not even spin up. After some research, I found that many people pointed the finger at WMP11 and suggested to reinstall it. I did this to now effect.

Out of frustration, I reformatted my laptop and installed Windows 7 Professional on it. I went to test a music CD on it and I get the same issue. I can hear the drive head moving, but music CDs will not spin up. I have tried quite a few different ones that play fine on my wife's laptop, so I know that is not the problem. Does anyone have any ideas, or is my drive shot? Thanks!

Answer 1

Before completely giving up on it try a different player like VLC. It doesn't sound like its your drive if it can read an OS install disc fine.

The troubleshooting tools in Windows 7 are also helpful at times. Under Control Panel -> All Control Panel Items -> Troubleshooting -> Hardware and Sound try the option Playing and Burning CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray Discs. This will usually resolve issues that prevent you from playing these types of media.

Answer 2

As it turns out, there is nothing wrong with my drive. Oddly enough, I happened upon a CD that worked fine. After doing some testing in my wife's computer, I have found that I have a few CDs that somehow went bad. I had had a cd book out in my car and I brought them in to rip. I guess being out in the cold and then bringing them in built up some moisture and somehow messed with about half 5-6 CDs that were in the book. These 5-6 discs will not work in a few different laptops drives that I have checked them (they have in the past) but I was able to rip them with my desktop computer at work. Is it common for CDs (they are the real deal and not burnt CDs) to be damaged so easily? I have never had this kind of problem before.