Drive not responding

Windows uses autorun or autoplay to detect removable discs such as cds and dvds.

Some cd and dvdroms, especially software installers, have an autorun.inf file which forces the disc to start.

Firstly Autoplay. Your media player may have been set to disable this function so your discs do not automatically run. Or you may have several suitable media players installed, but you haven't set one as your default player. Make sure you choose a default player, then set it to automatically run when a disc is inserted.

Secondly, you should be able to manually run the disc by going to My Computer then left click the dvd or cd drive. You may be prompted to select a player or program to run the disc.

Thirdly, "autorun" may have been disabled in registry.
You can check this by looking at the following key in registry.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\NoDriveAutoRun
This will be followed by Bit 0 for drive A and Bit 1 for drive B etc. IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS, DO NOT TOUCH REGISTRY!!!

Fourthly, as kykeaton says, you may have a faulty drive.






autorun may have been deliberately disabled in registry.