Problems with WMP - Won't detect CD/DVD Player

purple_spider

I've been using WMP11 to burn cds and today I opened it to burn a cd and it said this -

"No CD or DVD Player has been detected, Press F5 to refresh the Player"

I've tried uninstalling it back to the previous version (WMP 10) but it still has the same message.

Does anyone have any ideas how to fix it?

edit:
I have an internal DVD-RW drive, which works with other programs (Ashampoo Burning Studio), so i don't think its a hardware fault.

Browntoa

try systems restore to go back to a point where it worked

wakandem

can you see the cd player in 'my computer'

purple_spider

I'm not too sure about a systems restore - what does it do?

I can see the cd player in my computer, at it has the "enable cd recording on this drive" box ticked.

wakandem

It is poss that another burning prog is 'locking' the drive. Clutching at straws really !
Does WMP play a normal cd from the drive?

Browntoa

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial56.html

Restoring Windows XP to a previous State
To restore Windows XP to a previous restore point you need to open the System Restore Utility. To open the utility, go to your System Tools group under Accessories in your Programs menu. Then click on the System Restore icon. You will be presented with a screen similar to Figure 3 above.
You should select the radio button that is labeled "Restore my computer to an earlier time", which is designated by the red box. When that is selected press the Next button. You will then be presented with a screen similar to Figure 6 below.

Figure 6. Select a Restore Point

At this point you should select a restore point that you would like to restore. If a particular day has any restore points created on it the date will be in bold. You can then select the restore point by clicking once on its name, as designated by the red box in Figure 6 and then pressing the Next button.
At this point you will prompted with a confirmation as to whether or not you want to continue. If you do want to continue, you should press the Next button again, otherwise press cancel. System restore will then shut down all open applications and reboot the computer.
After the computer is rebooted you will see a screen that contains information as shown Figure 7 below confirming that the restoration to the restore point is complete.

Figure 7. Restoration Complete

If there are any problems with your computer since you restored to this restore point, you can revert back to your previous settings by going back into the System Restore Utility and selecting the "Undo my last restoration" radio button and pressing the Next button as show in Figure 8 below.

Figure 8. Undo your last Restoration

movieman

Doesn't work for me, either. I was really impressed when I decided to try using it to burn a CD and it told me that I don't have a CD writer.

Well, duh, what's that DVD-R drive listed in 'My Computer' then, eh?

purple_spider

thanks for that!

WMP does play a cd, and recognise tracks if you want to rip them off of a cd, yet it doesnt think that there is a device there if you want to burn a cd - which is mad really!

Nice to know its not just me movieman

Browntoa - how does a system restore effect other programs on my computer (sorry i'm not very tech minded!) will they change or is it just WMP/Windows programs?

Browntoa

it just takes everything back to that point, leaves all your files alone....I do it all the time if things go wrong, always set a restore point if i'm playing with the Pc settings etc

purple_spider

thanks! I'll give it a try and see what happens

purple_spider

I used the system restore - and after a few unsuccessful attempts, I managed to get a system restore to February 14th.

It worked & restarted ok, and so I opened WMP, but its still reporting the same problem

Any other ideas?