Click the Start button, then 'Settings', then 'Control Panel'. Now double click on 'System' and from the tabs at the top choose 'Device Manager'. You will see this:







Look under the CDROM section, and see if there is anything that has a ! or a ? on top of the icon. For example, right now my 'Microtek Parallel Port Host Adapter' has a problem, because of the yellow ! on the icon. Now double click on the one with a problem, and it will give you a window with info about the device, including the 'Device Status' which has information about what is wrong with the device.



If there is nothing wrong there, try this:



Double click 'My Computer' on the Desktop, and double click your CD-ROM drive while there is a CD in the drive. What error message comes up? 'D: is not accessible. The device is not ready. [ Retry ] [ Cancel ]'?



Try right clicking on the CD icon, and choose 'Eject'. Does the CD tray open?



I had this problem once on an old school computer: There was something stuck inside the drive and the door wouldn't close all the way. When this happened, it would make a big grinding noise and the light would keep blinking because it was trying to close the tray. It is still broken now, because they never got around to fixing it, but I would suggest taking the drive out and seeing if anything is stuck inside.



That is all I can really help with, so I hope you can fix it. Try asking your mom if she notices any problems with the CD drive. If she doesn't notice anything wrong, it is probably something you are doing wrong, or all the CD's you try are bad.



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You are the weakest link..goodbye!