Windows XP problem/question with Disc Drives

I don't know if it's specifically a problem with XP (SP2) but everytime I remove a disc from either my CD drive or my DVD-RW drive and place another like disc in them, it thinks that previous disc is still in there, even displaying the data of the last disc. If I restart my PC it fixes the problem until I switch discs again!

Any idea's on how to get XP to refresh and read the new disc? "View, refresh" and F5 don't do any good.

Open the window for the drive, click on "view" on the top menu, select "refresh" from the drop down options.

F5 usually works as refresh also in windoze

I tried all that and it doesn't work. It doesn't always do this but when it does I just restart the computer.

I can even remove (say a game) and put a DVD Data disc in and it will show nothing in the drive, then it spins the disc up and reads it and tells me it's the game (1st disc). It will even try to play the game, it starts up and then the game crashes because that disc is not in there.

Auto-insert notification might be disabled...

legtu said:

Auto-insert notification might be disabled...

Click to expand...

How do I check?

Even if you can't fix it, there ought to be something you can do short of a re-boot. For instance you could try disabling and then re-enabling the drive. You can do that from Device Manager. One way to get to device manager is: right click on My Computer. Click Manage > Device Manager (under System Tools).

Here's one thing to try. When you eject the first disk, do it from Windows Explorer. Right click on the drive, then click Eject. Supposedly when you insert the second disk, it will refresh.

You can also play around with "Auto Play" if you haven't tried it yet. Right click on the drive. Click Properties > AutoPlay tab.

If you've installed some CD burning software, maybe that's the problem

If you have XP Pro, DougKnox has a tip that enables you to control AutoPlay, even for external hard drives. When I plugged in my external hard drive with 4 partitions, XP used to start up multiple copies of AutoPlay faster than I could kill them. Not anymore:
http://dougknox.com/xp/tips/cd_autoplay_pro.htm

I suppose it could be the fault of the driver for your CD drive. CD drives are cheap these days. Even DVD/CD burners.

it is not autoplay being enabled or disabled

this sounds like

1. your drive is failing

2. some software is messing up the disc change notification

I'll try these suggestions next time this happends. I don't think the drive is failing since this happends on both drives that I have.

eluminator said:

Even if you can't fix it, there ought to be something you can do short of a re-boot. For instance you could try disabling and then re-enabling the drive. You can do that from Device Manager. One way to get to device manager is: right click on My Computer. Click Manage > Device Manager (under System Tools).

Here's one thing to try. When you eject the first disk, do it from Windows Explorer. Right click on the drive, then click Eject. Supposedly when you insert the second disk, it will refresh.

.

Click to expand...

If you always let Windowx eject the media, you won't have a problem with Windows, there are some applications however that won't take no for an answer. Eudora comes to mind.

I occasionally send attachments that are on a FDD or CD-ROM. After being sent they, messages sit in the outbox.
If the cursor ever ends up on a message in the outbox, it will try to retieve the attachmet from whatever device it was on when sent (to display in the preview box), whether there is media in or not, and if there is media in it, it doesn't care if the label is wrong.....

As I said, it won't take no for an answer.