Can't play any music CD's. Plz help!

[Ron_Jeremy 0]

When I put any music CD (retail or burned) into either my CDROM (Y:\) or DVDROM (Z:\), Winamp & Media Player both refuse to play it;

 

>Winamp just says [unknown host] cda://Y,1 (2,3,....)

>Media Player just tells me it's an unknown format

 

Both drives can read data & game CD's just fine. I have asociated the media players with audio CD's, but it didn't help.

 

The problem surfaced out of the blue, since I've always played music CD's on my PC, & I've never had this problem before.

 

Anyone have any ideas?

[shassouneh 0]

try ripping a single mp3 form BOTH your cd drives, meaning you make 2 copies of the mp3 file. If you can succesfully do that, then at least you know its probably not a hardware issue

[kgeissler 0]

Do you have the cable from the CD-ROM drive to the sound card connected?

[Sampson 0]

Before you go ripping into things, try these first. This is just to eliminate some possibilities.

 

1st experiment: Rather than use Winamp or Windows Media Player go to Programs/Accessories/Entertainment/CD Player - if it plays your CD's, you know that the problem is not with the CD and your the Codecs have not been changed.(the error message you get from Winamp can mean that it is trying to look some CD ip on the net and cannot make a connection). If it doesn't play if may mean the codecs were changed or the drivers for the CD's are corrupt.

 

2nd Experiment: Copy an mp3 from the CD to the Hard Drive. Again try to play the CD using the CD player supplied by XP. If it plays, your codecs are fine. If not the Codecs have been corrupted or substituted.

 

Run your anti-virus software to see if you have some beast lurking on your machine that may have caused the damage.

 

If you can play the CD with the CD player on the CD, reinstalling Winamp and Media Player should alleviate the problem.

 

If you can play the CD with the CD player on the Hard Disk but not on your CD devices it means there is a difficulty with those devices.

 

These things can happen for no reason because they can be hardware related. They can also happen inadvertantly because we have installed some new software or game that puts dll's and drivers in the system that optimizes that software but breaks something else. Have you made any such installations?

[Ron_Jeremy 0]

Quote:

1st experiment: Rather than use Winamp or Windows Media Player go to Programs/Accessories/Entertainment/CD Player - if it plays your CD's, you know that the problem is not with the CD and your the Codecs have not been changed.(the error message you get from Winamp can mean that it is trying to look some CD ip on the net and cannot make a connection). If it doesn't play if may mean the codecs were changed or the drivers for the CD's are corrupt.

2nd Experiment: Copy an mp3 from the CD to the Hard Drive. Again try to play the CD using the CD player supplied by XP. If it plays, your codecs are fine. If not the Codecs have been corrupted or substituted.

Run your anti-virus software to see if you have some beast lurking on your machine that may have caused the damage.

If you can play the CD with the CD player on the CD, reinstalling Winamp and Media Player should alleviate the problem.

If you can play the CD with the CD player on the Hard Disk but not on your CD devices it means there is a difficulty with those devices.

These things can happen for no reason because they can be hardware related. They can also happen inadvertantly because we have installed some new software or game that puts dll's and drivers in the system that optimizes that software but breaks something else. Have you made any such installations?

Sampson, thank you for all your help. Here's some results:

> Media Player & Winamp can play both wav & mp3 files. This can be done whether the music is on CD or on the hard disk. However, retail music CD's cannot be played by Winamp or Media Player. Both give the same error as stated in my initial post.

> Windows CD Player can play retail music CD's.

> I just did a fresh install of Win2K & immediately tried to play retail audio CD's, but both players refused. No virus protection (or other background) programs reside on the machine.

Any more ideas?

[Sampson 0]

Sorry Ron Jeremy, I really need to work on my communication skills. I didn't mean for you to reinstall windows, just uninstall and then reinstall Media Player and Winamp.

 

What I think may be happening with your Retail CD's is that Media Player and Winamp are attempting to go out on the internet to the Database that contains the Name and Title of the CD that you've just inserted into your CD Rom so that they can display the Titles of the songs on the various tracks. So, my guess is that there is nothing wrong with the programs they're just timing out trying to connect to the internet.

 

Bring up Media Player. Click on the Tool Menu item, then Options, then click on the Performance Tab. Depending on how you connect to the internet (cable,dsl,modem) pick the button. For a dialup modem, it is the second choice and give it the speed of the modem. While you are at this screen, Under Internet Settings UNCHECK the selection "Allow Internet Sites to Uniquely Identify You Player" (This has nothing to do with your problem, but you can give yourself a much bigger one since a hacker can aquire your IP and go looking for you).

 

Next, Click on the Network tab. Under protocols put a check in them all. Under Proxy settings will vary. Most often you should set HTTP (double click on it and Use browser settings. On MMS normally you set it: Not to use proxy server. (But if you have to use a proxy server for either of the above, these will vary)

 

If you've changed the way you go onto the Web recently - let's say you used to dialup but now you are using DSL, Winamp or Media Player, may not have been updated and are holding the old settings.

 

You can go into them and basically change the settings to reflect what your settings are in your browser. Or you can uninstall Winamp and Media Player and then reinstall them. (Be sure you download an installing setup of these respective programs from the web first)

 

If you have a firewall, this too may be impeding these programs.

 

Hope this gives you some new avenues to explore.