[Yo-Yo]

If the CD/DVD drive is over 3 years old it could have gone bad. Happened to me a while back.

[Crazieman]

They’re a dime a dozen, buy a new CD/DVD drive. I’ve seen new ones as low as $15

[PGR88]

I think your driver is not working properly. See if you can turn off the driver in the control panel, then re-boot.

[js1138]

Optical drives have a very short lifespan. The laser goes, and it still looks OK to Windows.

[Tarpon]

Drives fail, and the failure isn't easy to detect. Might just need cleaning, but never found one that did. For $25 you should be able to get another, or borrow someone's for a test.

[Snoopers-868th]

Go here and do a search?
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/newsgroups/reader.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.windowsxp.general&lang=en&cr=US

[Old Sarge]

Are you logged in?

[Sarah Barracuda]

I know with my old computer(it was 4 years old) the hard drive just died one day and it turned off, and I could actually smell burnt rubber, sometimes when a DVD drive dies, can be the result of it overheating, or maybe got full of dust(thats what happened to my drive, dust infiltrated the computer, causing it over time to die) My suggestion, buy an external drive, they are really cheap, unless you want to go the internal route(if you know how to put in drives) then go the internal way..

[Frantzie]

I had the same thing. FR people helped me out. I went to the store and got a new drive. Open the case, unscrewed the drive screws, pulled the power plug and ribbon cable. Installed the new ROM drive, power up and back in business.

I bought a HP DVD driver for about $30. I could have spent less but bought HP. Local stores selling computers have them or online try NewEgg, Tiger or others.

[TomGuy]

It is a frequent problem.

Check this:

You can no longer access the CD drive or the DVD drive, or you receive an error message after you remove a CD recording program or a DVD recording program in Windows XP: “error code 31”

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060/EN-US/

[PeaceBeWithYou]

You might try safe mode and see that it is the only one listed.

Remove any extras, if so. Reboot to normal and see if it now reads disc.

If not, try booting from a boot floppy with the cd support enabled and navigate to the cd drive in dos and see if it can read it. Bear in mind it will prolly be drive F: since the floppy boot adds a ram drive.

If it reads it, the windows driver is messed up, or has been disabled somehow.

[mountainlion]

You can find the drivers on HP website somewhere. HP website has a system check that can check the whole computer. It says I have a problem with my HD and battery. I have trouble with some computer program snatching control form the CD drive. Try to reinstall and also look for HP update for the whole computer.

[waynesa98]

Try right clicking my computer choose properties, hardware, device manager, dvd/cd players and open that. Choose your dvd player and delete it. reboot it should automatically reinstall. Hopefully it will work again.

[normanpubbie]

Dawg, Drivers for CD/DVD players are provided by Windows XP itself -- you don't need to find a driver online.

When you put a CD in, watch the drive light. It should flash once or more then go off or remain steady. If it stays dark or flashes about 50% on and 50% off that means that the drive cannot find a track on the disk. Also, when you put the CD in the drive, listen closely to the drive to see if the disk is spinning up. The most likely failure for CD/DVD drives is mechanical: the disk doesn't spin. If the disk doesn't spin up, check the power cable (four wires) and data cable (flat "ribbon") on the back of the unit to see that they have not come loose. If they are tight, the problem is almost always a mechanical failure in the drive which is of course non-repairable. And if you do buy a new drive, I recommend that you buy a DVD burner rather than a CD burner as the price difference now is almost negligible, especially if you buy it online.

P.S. As of this writing, no one has suggested that you get a Mac or put Linux on your PC. Good.

[Petronski]

In my case, this symptom was the first sign of a dying motherboard. The drive worked fine on other computers.

Turned out the IDE controller on the chipset was failing. Shortly thereafter, the computer would spontaneously and suddenly shut down. Finally, it would not come on at all.

[billorites]

Please don't hit me if this sounds like a foolish question, but the problem drive still shows up in My Computer with a drive letter, for example E:, assigned? Sometimes stuff happens and drives "disappear."

If that's not the problem you can save yourself a lot of grief and replace an internal drive cheap. The hardest part is vacuuming dust of the case before opening it up.

Or you can be a big spender like me and buy an external USB HP DVD/CD drive for $60-70.

[Yosemitest]

Let me guess. You installed Service Pack 3, didn’t you?

[AFreeBird]

You haven’t been using it as a cup holder again, have you?

[cva66snipe]

Nobodies mentioned this yet I think. The drivers are internal on HP’s if I( remember right. So go to your device manager by clicking Control Panel click System, Click Hardware, Click device manager. Make sure the player does not have a disabled tag on it. Right click on the CD driver to properties and there you should be able to update or roll back drivers. Check again and make certain the CD player did not get clicked disabled.

[OneHun]

Try what others suggested for diagnoses, included the DOS mode.  If nothing works buy a new one at www.NewEgg.com  (good prices).  I am not affiliated with NewEgg, I just get all my computer parts from them.  Be sure you read the system requirements before you purchase.  Installation is easy, but if you want installation instruction, then select the retail version for a few extra bucks.

Good luck!