Problems accessing audio CDs

I can't access music files on audio CDs. I've tried two different DVD drives and a portable DVD drive with the same result. I get two different symptoms: if I right-click on the drive and pick "Play" I get the "Windows cannot access specified device" error popup; if I pick "Open" I get a list of files on the DVD that is missing all audio tracks. I am using a commercial audio DVD not a burned one, but the file list shows "Files ready to be written to the disc (1): desktop.ini". I think that's wrong and is a clue.

I don't know when the problem started but it could have been going on for months. I've spent several days searching for this problem online and trying suggestions that I find. My computer has too much on it to consider reinstalling Windows or using other brute-force methods; in the past I've always solved problems like this by figuring out what is wrong and fixing it, which is what I want to do here. Also, I've already tried all the standard troubleshooting steps like SFC and much more; please don't "help" by suggesting them. I'm hoping I can find someone with experience with this particular problem who can suggest specific things to check or try.

Also, if you see the word "audio" and want to suggest that it is a bad laser, please read my post more carefully. It fails the same way on three different drives.

Thank you for your understanding and for any help you can offer!

You have to be clear what you are referring to Audio CDs, or Audio DVDs. The latter is a quite rare format.

"Files ready to be written to the disc" is a message you get when burning discs with the built in Windows CD/DVD burning feature.

The aggressive post does not help.

What are the ---standard troubleshooting steps ---which you claim to have completed ?
Commonsense should tell you if we don't know what you have done, we don't know what not to repeat.

Can you play the file in Winamp and or VLC?

When you write a Disc ( any disc ) and it is not data, your limited to ripping the files with a program ( that would spit them out as wav among other types ). Sure windows do have options but again it is windows

Sorry for the delay in responding. I've been insanely busy, and also spent a few days trying to track down a program to report on specifications of the CD/DVD drive and of the disk in it.

Helmut said:

The aggressive post does not help.

First, I want to apologize for the tone of my post. My intent was not to be aggressive or hostile, but to save people from the need to make suggestions which are not helpful (and to save me from having to wade through them). I'm very bad at being tactful about such things, and that failing was apparent here.

I've been doing IT work and programming since 1968, and for the most part I know what I'm doing. I rarely get stuck, but this is one of those times. I'm looking for fairly high-level assistance from someone who understands this problem; that doesn't mean that I can't be overlooking something simple and stupid.

Helmut said:

"Files ready to be written to the disc" is a message you get when burning discs with the built in Windows CD/DVD burning feature.

Exactly. What is odd and notable is that the loaded disk is a commercial audio CD. It's not a writable disk.

Helmut said:

You have to be clear what you are referring to Audio CDs, or Audio DVDs. The latter is a quite rare format.

It is an enhanced audio CD. It has 12 audio tracks and a small MPG file. Sorry I was unclear.

Responding to others' comments (the message board doesn't seem to permit quoting others when creating a reply, or at least I couldn't figure out how):

Berton: "I know the subject is about Audio discs but your My Computer doesn't mention anything about the ODD/Optical Disc Drive."

Sorry for the omission -- the form didn't have a field to enter the optical drive. I've added the drive to the computer description. I've also uploaded the output from Nero InfoTool, which has details about the drive and the loaded disk. It is a very long file; the CD/DVD info is at the beginning and the rest of the file has extensive details about my computer and what's installed on it, which probably is of no interest but I didn't want to delete it.

joeandmarg0: "What are the ---standard troubleshooting steps ---which you claim to have completed ?
Commonsense should tell you if we don't know what you have done, we don't know what not to repeat."

Sorry. I've been troubleshooting this for many days and I doubt that I'll remember everything. I've deleted the device with Device Manager and reloaded the driver. I've run SFC. I tried to restore to a restore point and found to my horror that something had set the restore point storage to 0% so there weren't any (now fixed but that doesn't help here). I've also tried two other drives and two media players. There is much more but I'm drawing a blank.

I guess the next step is to start uninstalling Windows updates one at a time. That will be a lot of work, and won't help if the problem didn't come from a Windows update, or if it was caused by a bug in a Windows update.

Daymin: "Can you play the file in Winamp and or VLC? When you write a Disc ( any disc ) and it is not data, your limited to ripping the files with a program ( that would spit them out as wav among other types ). Sure windows do have options but again it is windows"

Yes I've tried playing the audio with several audio players including MPC-HC x64 and Windows Media Player. They, as with everything else, do not see the audio files on the CD.

I'm most interested in trying to figure out what's wrong. I'm quite comfortable working with the registry but don't know enough about the specific entries that might be responsible for this.

Thank you everyone for reading this and for any suggestions you may have. I apologize for anything I may have said that offends you; it is certainly not my intent.

VLC and or Winamp could read like any other player. But there are many others.

Maybe it is a special disc for a real DVD or VCD player. Some of these disk might have special requirements. Another idea is that when the disc was made, a specific OS was requested like Windows 9x or OS9/OSX with SWF/director/Flash/Shockwave installed, or maybe whatever Active X was presented.

If you do not have any other OS on stand-by you could find a version of VMware and install Whichever OS is supported. For OSX you need unlocker. Then test the disc within that virtual machine itself.

Beyond that I have no idea. "Specialized discs" required special functions. Many was released with a specific device. There are other tools that could read the CD Identification number ( make model year released ) many discs ( if not all ) from specific time frames have codes, while others do not. This is good for spotting duplications/copys ( like when I brought CD from 1980's that reported being made in 200X, or no ID information at all.

Only Cd I know are specialized CD written for Flash, and Active X. Usually marketing material for colleges, vacations, or other special event attribute.

exeye said:

I can't access music files on audio CDs. <snip> ...the file list shows "Files ready to be written to the disc (1): desktop.ini". I think that's wrong and is a clue.

Although I don't have a CD Extra disc to try, I don't think that observation is a clue - File Explorer shows me the same on pressed audio CDs. I think it is just Windows optimism.

exeye said:

Responding to others' comments (the message board doesn't seem to permit quoting others when creating a reply, or at least I couldn't figure out how)

I could not see a clear way to do this, but, as you have clearly found, If you click Quote at bottom right of a message, the editor grabs the whole message and embeds it in [QUOTE...] [/QUOTE] brackets which boxes up the quote in a different background. To break a quote up into several pieces, you need matching [Q-[/Q bracket pairs.

You can create your own opening [Quote...] brackets, credit them to the appropriate user and (optionally, as I have just discovered), include the post number - without that, the little arrow that takes one to the quoted post is not present, eg

MNG said:

Although I don't have a CD Extra disc to try...

as I wrote earlier. You can find the post numbers by clicking on the # in the top rt corner, but that is more bother.

exeye again said:

I guess the next step is to start uninstalling Windows updates one at a time. That will be a lot of work, and won't help if the problem didn't come from a Windows update, or if it was caused by a bug in a Windows update.

Can you use another PC to test this? It seems unlikely that Windows has borked the handling of such a long-disused (?) format.

Of course, it is much easier when you use the forum tools! I have never noticed, but next to 'Quote' is a multi-quote option (highlighted in orange):

Click that for whichever posts you want to include quotes from (it toggles on-off), and when done click 'quote' (in green):


You will be taken to the editor, which each quote properly atributed (and linked), and you can cut and insert as required. Live & learn!