Cant Play My Cds On Cd Drive Which Attaches To My Laptop

[piggynose]

I was given a music cd recently as a gift. As my laptop hasn´t got a place to play cds, i thought id use my seperate cd drive which ive used for several years on previous laptops without any difficulty. My laptop is new, its a HP, with windows 10, 64 bit. So what could be the problem?
TIA

[237SJ]

You probably need to download the correct CD driver to your laptop

[Buenchico]

Where do things go wrong? If you plug the drive into a USB port and insert a CD does anything at all happen? If not, have you tried opening your media player first and then trying to see if it knows that there's a CD in the drive?

[piggynose]

Media player. How do i open that?

[piggynose]

Chris, I found the media player, opened it, and its not reading or recognising my cd.

[Buenchico]

Right. Here's what happens for me:

When I first plug my CD drive into my laptop, I hear a little noise from it, signifying that it's powered up. I also hear a 'beep-diddy-beep' sound from my laptop.

When I insert an CD, I see a pop-up box, asking me what I was to do with an audio disc. When I click on it, I select 'Play with Windows Media Player'. (While that's happening, my drive is making little whirring noises, as it accesses the data on the disc). Having done that, Windows Media Player opens and plays the disc.

However, if for some reason that doesn't all happen automatically, I can go to Start > Programs > Windows Accessories > Windows Media Player and open the software that way. At the bottom of the 'Library' column (on the left) I then see the name of the CD album. Clicking on that opens a list of all the tracks. Double-clicking on a track name starts that track playing.

So do you see or hear anything when you first connect your CD drive? Does anything at all happen when you insert a CD? If you open Windows Media Player, is the disc title displayed at the bottom of the 'Library' column?

[piggynose]

absolutely nothing! chris

[Buenchico]

Oops! Crossed posts!

Have you heard any little whirring noises from your CD drive when you first insert a CD? (If not, have you tried using a different USB port for the drive?).

[piggynose]

i initially found media player easily, now when i try to get it, i´m being asked to download it.

[piggynose]

yes i get whirring sounds, ive only got 2 usb ports, and ive tried them both.

[Buenchico]

Weird! (I hate Windows Media Player anyway and do my very best to avoid using it). Are you actually hearing any whirring noises from your drive when you insert a CD?

[Buenchico]

Crossed posts again!

Make and model of your CD drive, please? (That info is probably on a sticker underneath it).

[piggynose]

crossed posts?
the cd player or drive is called a compact disc rewritable RW. dvd rewritable, DVD R/RW, well thats all i could find on the side. Hope that helps.

[Buenchico]

Not really. I was hoping for a label like this one, so I could try to find out if it's Windows 10 compatible and/or if it needs a new driver downloaded for it:
https://static.tweaktown.com/content/6/7/6718_07_samsung_se_218gn_slim_external_dvd_writer_review_full.jpg

Let's try another way:
With the CD drive plugged in, click on the the Windows search button (bottom left on your screen) and type 'devi' into the box. Under 'Best Match', above, you should see 'Device Manager'. Click on it. Then double-click DVD/CD-Rom Drives. The entry should expand to show your drive. Right-click on it and then on 'Update Driver'. If there's a new driver available for the drive, hopefully Windows will locate and install it.

[piggynose]

theres no DVD/CD-Rom Drives under device manager.

[Buenchico]

Double-click 'This PC' on your desktop. When I do that, I see this:
https://ibb.co/GkDsHpL
You'll see that my CD drive (which is actually a DVD drive) is shown at the foot of the screen. Do you see something similar?

[piggynose]

no, just windows (C:)

[Buenchico]

OK. So far we've established that your drive is getting power from your laptop but that Windows doesn't recognise it.

Click on the Windows search button. Type 'contr' into the box. Click on 'Control Panel'. If 'Troubleshooting' is shown, click on it. If it isn't shown, change 'View' from 'Categories' to 'Large icons' and then click on it.

Click on 'Hardware and Sound' and then on 'Video Playback'. Run the troubleshooter from there.

If that doesn't fix the problem, disconnect the CD drive. Go to Device Manager (as before). Double-click on Universal Serial Bus Controllers. Right-click on each entry in turn and, in each case, select Uninstall Device. (If you see a warning message, go ahead and do it anyway). Then restart your laptop. If you then go back to Device Manager, everything you uninstalled should be back in place again. Then try connecting your CD drive again.
[NB: I've used that technique several times myself and everything I've uninstalled has always magically returned after I've restarted my computer. However I never like doing it, as I'm always afraid that things might not come back again, leaving me without any functioning USB ports. Proceed at your own risk!].

[piggynose]

no joy, still no good.

[Buenchico]

Your CD drive appears to be dead!

Optical drives never seem to last long. On every desktop computer I've owned over the past quarter of a century, I've nearly always had to replace the internal drive (sometimes more than once) during the lifetime of the machine. External drives are frequently as short-lived, so I'm never that surprised when I read about one that simply doesn't want to play ball.

I've just been looking for a possible replacement drive on Amazon though and I've noticed that some older models are specifically stated as not being fully compatible with Windows 10, so it might be that your drive is such a model and could continue to work with other operating systems but can't be used with Windows 10.

If I was in your position, I'd probably nip along to Argos:
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/8240398

[piggynose]

Morning Chris,
Nip to argos, wish i could but i live in spain. Wonder if they deliver to spain?