I'm using Windows 2000.  My CDs are not being read.  When I pop in a CD (either audio or data CD), the CD-ROM LED flashes on as if reading, but then goes off, and Windows does not detect any CD in the drive.  Could anyone out there help. MY CD-ROM is 52x and five months old.  It's kinda weird.  When I right-click on the CD-ROM drive in "My Computer" and then choose "Explore" it tells me to insert a CD in the CD-ROM drive, even though there's a CD there already.

You are getting power to the unit, since the light is coming on. I would check the ribbon cable to the unit to make sure it is tight. And even at five months, it would appear that your laser has gone out. Hopefully you kept your warranty papers - and invoice.

I Have similar problem on my cd-rom - no fix yet but I hope the following gives you some comfort. I have an ide cd-rom sharing the primary ide channel with a hard disk. The secondary IDe channel is shared by two hard disks. When I disconnect the two secondary hard disks the cd-rom starts working again. I used the windows troubleshooter and it seems the problem is caused by the number of IDE devices I have but the troubleshooter very helpfully tells you to seek advice elsewhere as to changing the win2k registry to correct the problem!! PS the problem does not effect my CDRW which is a SCSI and therefore its probably a bug in win2k!