Using my PC's CDROM drive freezes up Windows XP?

At first I thought it might be the bios chip (the little small one on the CD Drive) that went out as has happened to me a few times, but when he said he could install a game until he changed disks, that voided that idea. (note: that chip goes out, CD drive does everything except do what it suppose to do, read content).

No one mentioned if he un-installed the drivers to an earlier install. If he has not tried that, it is worth a try.

I have the opposite problem! If I DON'T have a CD in the drive it hangs on s/d and s/u! Started after a MB replacement & fresh install of XP Pro.

If all else fails I would set both units to CABLE SELECT on the Secondary IDE.

If problem persists I would than try moving one of the units to slave position on Primary IDE (be sure to reset the jumper).

I have had a similar issue and it seemed to be caused by the CD/DVD authoring software. On a clean install the problem did not occur until this software was installed. The workaround that I came up with was to disable the autorun feature. Also, some of the newer copy protection schemes can cause these issues.

I have the same problem on an IBM [s]ThinkPad Model 40. It has a removable CD-RW/DVD. I have swapped out with a known good DVD and still have the issue.

I had the same problem. Still happens every now and again. One thing that we both share in this scenario is the Gigabyte MBD. I had to update the bios and the cd firmware to allieviate my situation. And like I stated earlier, still occurs every once in a while. Just eject the cd and restart.

My problem is similar, but not exactly the same. If I boot my computer with a disk in either the CD or DVD drives, it will read that disk when I launch the game or application that uses that disk. When I try to put another disk in either drive after ending the program using that disk, it will not recognize that there is even a disk in the either drive. If I make sure that there is no disk in either drive when I shut down for the night, so that the drives are empty when I boot up next time, both drives work fine and will recognize all subsequent disk changes for that session. The problem just appeared one day after working fine for months and after trying all the solutions mentioned here including new CD and DVD drives this is the best I have been able to get the system to perform since the original problem. I have seen very similar problems on several different forums but have never seen a solution that fully fixes the problem I have, other than to boot up with no disks in either drive. I have a 1.8 gig pentium, 1 gig of ram, an xtasy 9600 XT with 256mb 8x agp video card , HP CD writer and a samsung dvd sd-616f.

There is possibly another explanation. There are several authoring tools that cause problems with the CD drivers when they are uninstalled. I have seen this addressed in the past but have had not had time to do any research. I think there were 2 or 3 different packages that caused this kind of problem. If you have uninstalled a CD/DVD authoring program recently try to contact the manufacturer and see if they have any known issues.

I have no problems with audio or video CDs/DVDs, but data or programs cause a sudden crash. This happened suddenly for no apparent reason, but now happens every time! I have to remove the disk mechanically before I can restart! I've tried everything I can think of - including a different DVD drive, so far withour success. XP Pro, everything else works fine. Help!

My computer was running fine. I accidently knocked the power cord from the electric socket.
I plugged it back in and a blue screen came up saying there were too many things opening up at the same time. I cannot get the computer to reboot and start up correctly. (This is what was suggested on the blue screen.) Did something happen to the hard drive? I would appreciate any help. Thanks

My (somewhat similar) problem is that I often get a blue screen (XP Pro SP2) if I am burning a DVD (Nero or DVD Decrypter) at the same time I am watching TV on my computer (using a Hauppauge WinTV card). Burning or watching TV? -- no problems. Burning AND watching TV -- often get the BSOD.

I've seen the same occurence also with a Samsung CDRW/DVD SM-3488on a Dell. In Win XP I put in a new CD-R in and copied an AVI file of a screen capture to the CD-R. I did a right click on the drive in Explorer and chose eject. It wrote the file and ejected the disc. I put the disk back in, viewed the file, and when I went to eject it nothing happened with software or hardware eject. I know CD Trays can be locked and unlocked. I opened DVD-Decrypter and used the eject button in that program and the drive opened. I noticed later that a right click on the drive name in the drop down menu in DVD-Decrypter gives you a menu with Lock Tray and Unlock Tray options. I suspect it automatically unlocks the tray if locked when you choose eject.

I had the same problem with my 2.2ghz machine whenever i inserted any disc in my cd-writer it used to hang my windowsXp, so i try removing one RAM from your system and it worked for me, might work for you as well...

My computer locked up when inserting a CD or DVD... I discovered it was because my scanner's USB connection was unplugged or the power was off. Make sure all your "installed" peripherals are connected... Sounds crazy ...but that's what it was: something so simple... At least in my case...

Here's another solution. I tried to install Cyberlink PowerDVD and Wndows Front Page 2003 - full version - and after the initial startup intro windows - as soon as data was being read, nearly a complete freeze. WRT the Cyberlink program, I went to bed after about two hours and 30% completion on a 3.2 Ghz Dell and in the morning it was completely loaded.
Running XP SP2 Home btw.
Then I saw a hint after plowing through registry cleanup programs, running Norton anti virus on full scan - nothing found, web searches etc. The hint was NORTON ANTI_VIRUS. For the first time in nearly fifteen years I decided to try shutting down that Damn Norton Program - Anti- Virus 2006. It WORKED. The Cyberlink program installed in about 10 seconds !!!
To tow the party line - dont forget to turn the damn thing back on again !!!!!!!!!

i use a p2 system .
my system hangs up after every 5 minutes .
is there any hardware problem ....
i tryed installing win xp,redhat 7,win98and ect.
the same problem prevails...
any solution send it to me as soon as possible

My computer worked fine until I reinstalled Directx 9.0c. Now, whenever I insert a CD (audio or CD-ROM), or DVD, it locks up (and I have to turn the power off). An interrupt issue? There must be a BIOS flag, or registry entry which got changed which is causing this problem. I just don't know which one out of thousands... I am using Win2K.

What I am hoping to find on the Internet is detailed hardware information on what happens when a CD is inserted. Is there an ATAPI pin which causes an interrupt? Which handler services this interrupt? How can it be debugged? Is this a DMA issue? If so, how do I debug it? If I knew the exact chain of events, in theory, I should be able to find the problem.

I have the same lock up problems almost 50% of times when using my optical drives. Please note that they are both 'NEW' drives on a 'NEW' System. They are respectively a Sony ROM and Phillips CD/DVD RW. These freeze-ups occur when using CD Audio, CD Data, DVD (Movie) & DVD Data inclusive.
The funny thing is that I can insert one now and it will perform normally, then I can try the same medium one minute later and to my frustration, it freezes the entire system silly. Not even Ctrl/Alt/Delete combination could enable a response. It's a 100% and unrecoverable freeze.

my problem relates to all of these but i still cant find an answer to my problem.
i have a cd and a dvd drive and both seem to be having problems with inserting a cd or dvd and when i insert the cd or dvd my pc just reboots and if i dont take the cd out quick then my pc will go on a rampage of reboots that never stop i just need a simple solution to this problem and fast as i use cd's all the time

thanks in advance Tom :)

If I try to boot my computer it just hangs before it starts up windows XP. It is an IBM machine. While I try to boot from CD, it also complains about something like "BIOS is not ACPI compliant" When not hanging it displays the message like "no operating system found" I will be happy for any suggestion on the problem.

my PC hangs on start up page -even on new hard drive it hangs in same place. I run Win XP pro. Cant even get far enough to start on Safe mode,after disc is inserted & begins the restart process to reboot after 3 seconds into it -IT hangs?

I have that same problem with my CD/DVD unit locking up on me. I am running "New" AMD64 XP5.1 SP2.

I started spinning tunes in a chatroom and ended up having to store all of my mp3's online. This is really a better idea since I can now simply mark a few directories/bands and add to media player, shuffle, and start out at the top in the event I need to stop and start up again, not repeating the same tunes like regular shuffle would do.

But I simply put in any type of disc and all comes to a grinding hault. Its like part of life for me now, except that I now store my tunes online. such is life?

My problem is exactly the same as described above. Is there a solution allready??

I ran into a similar problem while burning cds & dvds. I was able to burn both with no problems for quite a while then recently my system started rebooting any time I inserted a blank cd or dvd into my dvd burner. The simple solution to my problem was to disable Norton Antivirus 2006 before burning anything. Never had any problems before installing Norton 2006!

Everytime after playing a DVD movie, my computer will just freeze suddenly without warning. I tried many things including, updating the dvd drivers and software. When that didn't work I reformatted the hard drive. At first, it worked, but two days later, the problem returned. Could this be a corrupt system file that causes it?

I had tried to load a game yesterday and game disc broke in side cd drive. Now when I try to use it doestn't work at all. Can someone give me some advise on this matter. I have a compag computer can i get just any cd drive to replace the one i have and can some one help me is this easy for me to replace myself.

I have been experiencing the infamous reboot when placing blank media into the DVD Burner. I have tried everything, naturally re install of the burner SW, then checking the HW settings (Jumpers, Cables, although my machine had been running and burning for well over 12 months so no reason to be HW. I replaced the Burner, Still no fix. Finally after 3 months on and off trying to fix this, I did a complete systems re install right back to basics, including the BIOS. It worked. Most of my problems I am sure relate to Pinnacle where I am producing Video content. When the problem occurred the first time it was during the final stages of completing a rather large Project. Now after the re install some 3 months later on the final stages of jet another production the problem has come back. In my case Pinnacle must be one of the Suspects. I do not recommend Pinnacle for the instability problems is suffers from, I will change but need to clear off my project list before moving all my content to a new program.
Did anyone try a system restore? My machine reported it was not able to make a restore?
It must be a corrupted file somewhere do you know where?

I am going nuts. Everytime I insert a disc in cd rom, my computer freezes up, then I get the blue screen of death. Sometimes it will just run itself with nothing in it. It will open itself up too. However, when there is a cd in there (movie, or an install cd) I can't get it open, have to use a pin to override it. I should mention, I am using a Gateway Laptop, wtih AMD Turlon64 processor. Running windows xp.Plenty of memory and ram. What is causing my this drive to send me the death warning?

New drive wont help! i had exactly the same problem! i replaced a new drive but problem still exist. please advice!

thank you.

My problem is exactly the same as stated above on BOTH of my computers.

i have a dvd drive on one and a dvd rw drive on the other and both seem to be having problems with inserting a cd or dvd. If I reboot the computer, it will read the first disk i put in. If I take that disk out, and put in another disk, the entire system freezes up and nothing works. I have to remove the disk manually, reboot and then insert the disk I want to read.

I tried buying a new drive. Didn't work. I tried buying an external drive. Still had the same problem. I tried turning off autorun. That didn't help. I am about to try the baseball bat "fix."

It seems from all the comments above that lots of people are having the problem. But has anyone found a solution?

I have lost my Two Cd-rom's.
I have opend the computer to swich the drives from one that was not operating so good and now I can not find any of them.
Windows XP Home Ed. version 2002 service pack 2
Intel Pentium 4CPU 3.00GHz
I have opoen the computer twice to make sure the cables are corecly but no luck.

I have exactly the same problem and it is driving me nuts! I installed a new 250gb HDD in my system and moved my DVD-ROM to Master on the IDE with DVD/RW on Slave on the same IDE cable now when XP boots it recognises the DVD-ROM but not DVD/RW and any disc put in causes the PC to freeze. Eveything returns to normal when the disk is removed...please help!!

My solution for BSOD for empty CD, DVD:

I had BSOD then I put empty CD or DVD to drive for different CD, DVD drives connected over IDE or SATA from different manufactures. I have on my PC installation of Pinnacle Studio 10.0 and additional software for this Studio 10.0 it is packet Studio MediaSuite. In Studio MediaSuite is InstantWrite. If you go to Properties of your CD or DVD drive, you see additional Setting for this InstantWrite drivers. You need not check any of options of InstantWrite driver, after this BSOD disappear !!!

I have the lock up (freeze) problems every time when inserting my CD / DVD into my CD/DVD recorder. Please note that they are both 'NEW' drives on a 'NEW' System.

They are respectively HP CD/DVD RW. These freeze-ups occur when using CD Audio, CD Data, DVD (Movie) & DVD Data inclusive.

The funny thing is that I can insert one now and it will perform normally, then I can try the same medium one minute later and to my frustration, it freezes the entire system.

Not even Ctrl/Alt/Delete combination could enable a response. It's a 100% and unrecoverable freeze.

Ditto to most problems I have read here..DVD/CD drive freezes my whole computer when trying to access DVD or CD.. no cont/alt/del nothing.. And I build computers for a living.. I have tried everything.. new drive etc.. no go.. and this is my own computer.. I have not seen this in the thousands
I have built or worked on..

Ditto to most problems I have read here..DVD/CD drive freezes my whole computer when trying to access DVD or CD.. no cont/alt/del nothing.. And I build computers for a living.. I have tried everything.. new drive etc.. no go.. and this is my own computer.. I have not seen this in the thousands
I have built or worked on..

Mark Wrote:

Posted by: Mark L at October 20, 2005 5:36 PM

"I've seen the same occurence also with a Samsung CDRW/DVD SM-3488on a Dell. In Win XP I put in a new CD-R in and copied an AVI file of a screen capture to the CD-R. I did a right click on the drive in Explorer and chose eject. It wrote the file and ejected the disc. I put the disk back in, viewed the file, and when I went to eject it nothing happened with software or hardware eject. I know CD Trays can be locked and unlocked. I opened DVD-Decrypter and used the eject button in that program and the drive opened. I noticed later that a right click on the drive name in the drop down menu in DVD-Decrypter gives you a menu with Lock Tray and Unlock Tray options. I suspect it automatically unlocks the tray if locked when you choose eject."

I Had a very similar problem with the eject button not working and the eject options in windows not working after a disc would spin down. So i thought about it for awhile and as u may know if you do not have nero incd installed you will have problems with cdrw's not ejecting, so after finding out that the eject in dvd decrypter directly talks to the dvd burner. i figured it out and finally installed incd and now all is working fine no more stuck discs hope this helps somewhere along the lines.

I've had trouble with my optical drive locking up too. A couple months back I started seeing an issue where the drive activity light would be on, and the tray wouldn't open. The techs at Stone's Computer in FW said it was most likely an early sign of hardware failure, either in the motherboard, hard drive, or optical drive, or perhaps a bad cable. I went ahead and unhooked it, but after seeing soemthing on Sims 2 website about various issues with SecuROM, I hooked it back up to run an uninstall utility for SecuROM. Everything was fine for a few days til I got up this morning to check my email, and found the light back on and the drive locked up. Shut down and unhooked it again.

Well im having preety mutch the same problem with my new samsung drive. Realllly anoyying me now cant seem to fix it. Its strange it worked for about a week then decided to hang everytime i put a disc in, only option to reopen the drive to free up the computer. I got a new drive coming soon so i will see if that works for now..

I am having the same problem with my new computer, i thought i was hardware so i sucked it up and got a new CD drive only to find the same problem.

When i try to install anything that requires more than one disk (games for instance) when it comes time to insert the second disk the install probgram freezes and i have to restart my computer. Anyone have a solution to this?

It appears the only solution is to reformat your harddisk and reinstall Windows. I had that problem too..

My computer does the exact same thing.

When I insert a CD my computer freezes, so i have to wait 30 or 40 seconds. After that time everything is ok. However, it's annoying.

I've readed all tips on this page. I'm sure it's not software related.

PC hangs inserting an audio CD.

I solved the problem deinstalling Quick Time.

Regards

Héctor

I'm in this trouble right now.I had a Pro Tools8le software installed and from the moment I've remove it everything has fall apart.Now I'll try to remove quick time,and everything that is related to PT,if I find solution,I'll write it

i need HELP!! i dont no wat to do. my sims crashes everytime i try to open it up. y?
plz! HELP me!!!

my system hangs everytime i insert a disk into the dvd drive. Also, hangs on startup if there is a disk in the drive.It is a 100% freeze and pressing ctrl+alt+del doesnt help.

I have tried replacing the drive but it doesnt help.My boot priority is the hard drive and dont the dvd rom. what could be the problem. pls suggest.

My system configuration is windows xp(sp 3), 2.66GHz intel dual core processor. 2GB RAM. 160GB HDD. LG DVD writer.

hi there, had this issue too, it even locked up using a usb cdrom drive.
I fixed it by removing the upper and lower filter drivers.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060
Hope this helps
Gr3g0s

had the same prob...just solved it 5 mins ago :-) all i had to do is to uninstall nero 8 essential which came with the dvd rom