Resolved CD drive problem

Running Windows XP Home SP3 on Dell Dimension 8200 and I have started having problems with CD drive. Loading a disc in the tray and then closing it the monitor goes black and I have to shut down the machine to continue. Leaving the disc in the drive then restarting the unit, I can access the disc and any other program that I need. I am using an older version of Roxio Easy Creator 5.
Is my problem with the software, cd drive, driver for cd or something with Windows XP
I have no problems ejecting the cd everything runs as normal then.

 

A wild guess - power supply ?

 

Arie
I checked my event viewer as you suggested. No errors listed for Applications.
Under System there were 4 errors as follows and in the order shown:
Event 7000.
The APC UPS Service service failed to start due to the following error:
The system cannot find the path specified.

Event 7000
The ASKService service failed to start due to the following error:
The system cannot find the path specified.

Event 7000
The SHDSERV service failed to start due to the following error:
The system cannot find the path specified.

Event 7001
The Shield Client Service service depends on the SHDSERV service which failed to start because of the following error:
The system cannot find the path specified.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

They suggested several possilbe things to check which I have no idea as to how to accomplish.I did check "services.msc" and tried to start these services without success also ran a virus scan, nothing showed.

If you have any ideas I would appreciate any help given.

 

It may be a corrupted driver acting in some unknown way
try uninstalling the cd driver in the device manager
reboot
the cd driver will reinstall itself be reassured

 

Deleted driver restarted and tried cd drive same results

 

If you're using a version of Roxio earlier than 5.1 it the problem you are having may be due to that. My guess is it would have something to do with their Direct CD (I think that's what it used to be called) program.

Whether your version is newer than 5.0 or not, I'd try disabling Direct CD using msconfig (click start>run and type msconfig, then click on the startup tab) and see if the problem persists. There is one caveat when you disable it though. If you put a CDRW in the drive with Direct CD disabled, the drive won't open when you push the button to open it. I could be wrong about the CDRW part. May be with any CD but it's been a long time since I used it so I don't really remember for sure.

To open the door you either have to open it by pushing a paper clip (or whatever fits) in the small hole on the front of the drive and push until you trip the lock on it. Either that or reboot and use the button on the drive to open the door early in the boot process when Windows hasn't loaded yet.

It's not ideal and I don't expect you to live with it but you will find out if that's what's causing the problem or not. If so, you can uninstall Direct CD in add/remove programs without having to uninstall the burning program itself.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310628

 

Question???

Does the CD appear in your My Compter as a device along with your drives??
If NOT I would suggest a faiuled CD drive.

 

I have checked SIW\hardware\sensors which gave the temperatures of my hard drive, between 34ºC and 44ºC and running at 43°C. Is this within acceptable limits?

My Roxio version is 5.3.4+ and never caused any problems in the past 8 years on this machine.

Yes my CD drive shows up under MY Computer.

I tried the CD drive earlier and everything worked as it should, the CD was recognized and the machine did not shut down as in the past. The only thing different is I removed PCTools SpyDoctor with Antivirus which I have always felt was causing some problems.

Thanks to all who have offered their ideas and help I appreciate it.

Hopefully the problem is gone and I will not have to return and update my post only time will tell