hello everyone, i have another problem with my vista machine. my cd/dvd drive is refusing to read my cd whe ni insert it into the drive. the cd drive is a cd/dvd rw drive that came with my dell dimesnion 9200 machine and i think it is 16X speed. whenever i insert a cd or dvd into the machine it does not appear in my computer or doesnt autoplay. whenever i try to open the disc i get a message asking to name the cd/dvd. (you know the message u get when u insert a blank disc; the prompt windows askign u to name the disc and what kind of disc u want it to be i.e live disc. i tried to share drive d so that i could perhaps access it from network and sharing centre but when i go to it through network and sharing centre the disc agai nasks me to write a name for it and choose what kind of isc i want it to be. the only way for me to ope nthe disc is to use the run command.
the fact that the disc opens up from the run command means that the disc is obviously being read and that means that the hardware is working fine, hwoever there seems to be a problem with windows or soemthing.
could somoen plz tell me how to get around this problem
thnx in advance
.::DRIFTA::.

EDIT: Sorry i was wrong i am actually able to access the dvd through the network and sharing centre. it was only 1 disc that wasnt working through the network and sharing centre.\

P.S When i refer to network and sharing centre i mean: network and sharing centre-show me all the shared network folder on this computer

Drifta, what application is asking you to name the CD/DVD? I DO NOT know this message and I do not believe that it is part of Vista, at least not by default. Do you have some kind of packet writing software running?

I don't even understand why the software would ask for a name. What will it do, write the name to the disc? If it does that, the disc is no longer blank. I think that you should disable or remove whatever software is asking for names and see if that helps.

@ScottWthe application is not a third party application. it is inbuilt into windows vista ultimate. when u insert a blank disc into ur machine and then go to mycomputer and double click on ur cd drive u will get a diologue box which asks u to put a name for the cd and what kind of cd u want it to be.

@whs yes i checked the autoplay stuff u told me to check. the tickbox that is supposed to be ticked is infact ticked.just to make sure that some of the settings that i had changed before were not causing a problem i reset the whole thing with no luck. the cd/dvd or any other removable media does not autoplay.

i can open the cd now most of the time so the message i used to get for putting a name for my cd barely shows up now..and if it does i simply logoff and back on and it will stop coming.

i have also been getting the following message when i try to open usb's. dont know if this is related or another seperate problem.

i have this exact same problem, i havnt been able 2 use my drive at all, but at 1 time in my laptops life, about 6 months ago i was running xp and it was working jus fine.. then i put vista back on and i noticed that the drive was givin issues, strugglin 2 read disks, u can here the thing wants 2 spin up, but nothing happens, now it just does nothing when i put a disk in it, i gave up - the last it worked properly was when i re-installed vista.

OK, I know about this built-in CD burning feature in Vista. I just have it turned off and that's why I don't see that message. I use Nero to burn discs.

So, when you put a CD or DVD with data on it and try to open it in Explorer, you get the message that acts like it's a blank disc? What kind of discs have you tried? Pressed (store bought), CD-R, DVD+/-R, DVD+/-RW -- do they all behave the same?

i have crossloop if u want to see my screen and understand the problem better

heres the link if u dont have it and want it
http://www.crossloop.com/ipage.htm?id=movie

1) How new is the PC with the problem?
2) Have you looked through this page:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/.....ows-vista/
AutoPlayIssue

so after looking at the link that rickv posted i have been able to narrow down the problem to something wrong in my registry.
i am trying to perform the step below but my registry doesnt seem to have the explorer subgroup/folder

Ensure that correct NoDriveTypeAutoRun and/or NoDriveAutoRun policy value is set

NoDriveTypeAutoRun registry key is used by Group Policy to configure whether to disable the Autoplay feature on all drives of the type specified. To check this setting, run Registry Editor (regedit), and navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

or (note that above registry value, if exists, will always supersede the below user-specific key),

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Locate the NoDriveTypeAutoRun registry entry on the right pane. The registry key is in DWORD hexadecimal value, which each bit determines which type of drive to disable or enable AutoPlay feature. There are many possible value for NoDriveTypeAutoRun, some possible wrong value that disable AutoPlay are:

0×000000B5 (181) disable AutoRun on CD-ROM drives, plus default unknown drive, removable drive (meant for floppy or ZIP), network drive and reserved drive type.

0×000000FF (255) disable AutoRun/AutoPlay on all drive types.

The best bet is to set NoDriveTypeAutoRun to default value as set by Windows Vista, which is 0×00000091 (hexadecimal) or 145 (decimal). Previous Windows version such as XP uses 0×00000095 (hexadecimal) or 149 (decimal). To enable AutoPlay on all drive types, set NoDriveTypeAutoRun to 0 (zero) or 0×00000080 (128) which only disable AutoPlay on unknown reserved file type.

NoDriveAutoRun registry key, which stored at the same registry location, meanwhile determine whether a particular connected drive should run AutoPlay function or not. When AutoRun is enabled on the drive, media is automatically started when it is inserted in the drive.

By default, Windows Vista does not add any NoDriveAutoRun registry subkey. And you probably don’t want to block any drive from AutoPlay too. So remove and delete all NoDriveAutoRun key in the registry

could somone plese tell me how to put the explorer section back in my registry