Puzzler: Memorex 48x plays songs for ten seconds...

Sorry, wish it would have been the "grail" :)
Never thought that was much of a useful feature anyway, but damn if my car
stereo doesn't have the same feature.

Now, to the original problem...I looked at Memorex (not a lot of help there)
but they did list an audio skipping problem in relation to DMA, the
suggested fix being to uncheck DMA. Worth a shot, but it didn't seem to
match your problem 100%.

On the software track, what has been done to the system since the drive went
in? Did your friend try to upgrade drivers, add another CD drive (burner or
DVD) or tinker with the device settings? FWIW my CDROM (a Toshiba 40X)
shows up in Device Manager as not even needing drivers (on the Driver tab it
says "no drivers are required or have been loaded). But your case may
require some sort of driver for proper functioning. Didn't see much in the
way of help at # unfortunately.

One simple thing you could try (it would put you no worse off than you are
now) is to delete the device in Device Manager, reboot (Windows should
rediscover it) and if it isn't autodetected add it manually. Could just be
one of those mysterious glitches; doing this has fixed device problems for
me in the past, and if it doesn't fix it at least it shouldn't set you any
further back.

# had some info, not an exact match
though. To summarize, I'd try the following:
-use a different program (Winamp or Media Player, or something different
than what you are using) to handle CD audio...if the problem stops, the
original software is either gacked up or had a setting mis-set
-uncheck DMA, reboot and try a CD again.
-delete the device in Device Manager and reinstall it (either let Windows do
it or do it yourself)
-oh, yeah, check the physical connections (although if it works for other
things this probably isn't an issue...can't hurt though)

Good luck, don't smash it in frustration.

--
Robert Schumacher
remove IDONTTHINKSO to reply by e-mail
"I've always wondered why the needle is sterilized for execution by lethal
injection."

...

Great. I did think to check into that after four hours of accomplishing
nothing 16 different ways, but although it's a worthy suggestion,
disabling the "feature" didn't solve the problem. I'd never used the
preview option and didn't even know it existed until today. :/ Found
it by poking around in a random pattern, and felt like I found the holy
grail when I disabled it. But it didn't help, even after a reboot,
etc. :::grumble:::

Right now if we want the CD-ROM to play an album I have to disable
auto-insert notification and just hit the play button on the drive.
Windows CD player app is useless. Another beautiful day in the
neighborhood. :/

Thanks for caring, though.

--
Laura Goodwin

What software is handling the CD music. Sounds like a feature in many
computer and normal CD players, a "preview" that plays 5-10 secs of each
track. Check the software (for example, the generic Windows CD Player has a
feature called Intro Play, on the Options menu...if checked it plays a small
part of the beginning of each track)

--
Robert Schumacher
remove IDONTTHINKSO to reply by e-mail
"I've always wondered why the needle is sterilized for execution by lethal
injection."

...