CDRom will not Read Data CD, DVD Plays OK

I am running XP-Home on HP Notebook. DVD Movies run fine on the RW/DVD rom, although in Explorer No data files show up on Cd-Rom. Program Cd's will not start either, can't reload XP, because recovery on CDROM.

I believe that the CDROM unit is working, because XP knows when you load data cd, but then stops. I have updated Bios, drivers, checked HP for updates, Windows for updates, etc.

Does anyone know if this could just be a software settin??? I thought that Roxio that came with the box could be cause, but uninstalled No help???

All suggestions, and help appreciated.

 

To double check if this is hardware is software, put your software install/recovery CD in, restart the computer and see if it gives you an option to boot from it.
If it does and you can boot from it, don't do a recovery but that will tell you that the drive is working.
Than you can go back to Windows and check what software you have installed. Perhaps you have more than one CD/DVD burning software installed?

 

Thanks for the response. I tried to reboot from the recovery cd, and it would not start. The reason I thought it was not the hardware, is that it will read and play a DVD, which leads me to believe that the "Optical" drive is working???

The strange thing about this is, that it all started when my son opened Musicmatch for the 1st time (I owned the notebook for 3 months and never used musicmatch) but I have since uninstalled musicmatch, roxio both of which came with the machine. I thought that maybe they were "battling".

Any other thoughts????

 

Make sure you didn't miss it. When you boot off of a recovery CD, it will ask you if you want to boot from it, it does not do it automatically.
Also, go into the BIOS and make sure that the CD drive is set to boot BEFORE the hard drive.
If you do all this and still cannot boot, something may be wrong with the drive.
Is it removable or is it the built in drive that came with the laptop?

 

It is installed in the Notebook, HP wants me to send in for repair. I finally got them to accept that I can remove hard drive before I send back, don't want them wiping out my info.

I just don't think that it is a problem that requires shipping it back to them, and being without it. It is my office??? I do alot of design work, and I am busy right now.

I will try to reset the bios so that the cd is first. I updated the bios yesterday. It just really seems as though there is some kind of software conflict, that should be easy to repair. XP is just alittle less friendly that 2K or 98

 

Just a thought the removal of musicmatch may have caused the damage by removing a driver,,,if you reinstall the musicmatch, may install the commen driver ,,,,Do you have a copy of musicmatch,,if not I can send you the program,,,7.5 version that was originally on your PC,as it was shipped to you,,Glenn Just let me know

 

Appreciate the response. I have already reloaded musicmatch and no help, but I have not reloaded roxio. I may try this also to see if it was a roxio driver issue. This is really frustrating because it seems to be such a simple problem...I guess I will end up having to send notebook to HP???

 

Did you ask HP about a boot disk 3.5 floppy with drivers on it ,,,use SN of your system to get drivers

 

Silly question did you try a system restore?????? If not roll the system back to prior to your problems,,,,Glenn