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CD drive malfunctioning

Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:57:19 -0800

My CD drive still exists, but my computer system apparently doesn't realize it. When I put in an audio CD to be played/imported, the drive still opens when I push the button, but the operating system (Windows Vista) doesn't recognize that the drive (E, or whatever it is) is even there. All that shows up is C and D. I have rebooted several times, both by restarting and by turning the system off manually. When I try to burn a disc, I am told, "Disc burner or software not found."

Under "DVD/CD-ROM Drives," I see an "Optiarc DVD RW AD-7561A ATA Device." The device status for this is as follows: "Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)"

Any solutions?

Learning new languages during my commute!

zippity — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:53:12 -0800

I'd like to learn a new language during my daily commute. What is the best language learning audio cd available? I spend an hour or two daily on my daily commute and would like to use the time to learn new languages (conversationally; I'm not too concerned with the reading/writing aspect at this point).

Most of the language programs I've come across appear to be for use on the computer, but I just want an audio cd that teaches words and sentences (ideally, teaches pronunciation, the english meaning of the word, and then a short silent duration to practice the new word/phrase aloud).

I know there are many free language podcasts available, and if there are any especially good ones I'd love to hear about them, but I'm really looking for an audio cd language program I can pop into my car cd player and listen to and practice with during my commute, instead of a bunch of mini-lesson mp3s strung together.

If it matters, the languages I'd like to learn are Korean, German and I would like to expand my English vocabulary as well. Any suggestions and recommendations are appreciated!

Can't read audio CDs

monkey closet — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 15:29:16 -0800

Help! My CD drive has stopped seeing audio CDs Win XP SP2
One little oddity is that properties will report the correct disc size if started in safe mode (but still can't see the contents), but reports size 0 normally.
I've already had removal of GEAR drivers recommended. Hasn't helped, but doesn't seem to have screwed anything either...
My guess is some kind of copy protection, but I really can't work out what, or where it lives. How do I find it?

Why is CD playback on my Win2K machine plagued by "popping"?

NinjaPirate — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 05:57:28 -0800

Why is CD playback on my Win2K machine plagued by "popping"? I have two optical drives in my machine, one CDRW, one DVD+RW, both of them suffer the same problem when playing audio CDs - the music stutters and pops.
The disturbance is quiet, but noticable. The pops are arhythmic and continuous.

It's not a massive problem, because I rarely listen to CDs through my PC, but it's annoying, it spoils the music and it makes me wonder if the same problem might adversely affect other functions of the drives.

This may well be a common problem, but I seem to be searching with all the wrong words.