I purchased a Retail Plus 56x CD ROM 5 months ago. Yesterday during the installation of "The SIMS" game my CD ROM had paused and stalled suddenly. I managed to install the game. After I rebooted and attempted to play the game using the CD ROM, the CD ROM would not recognize the CD. I tested several CDs and none of them would read. I hear it spin once and then it is unable to read anything. The settings in Device manager were checked and the CD ROM is present and working properly. I did not use the CD Rom as much during the past 5 months. I only used to install programs and very rarely play some PC games. My computer is also farely new as well(5 months old). Computer specifications: AMD 750 mhz Duron proccesor with on board sound card. 128 mb SD RAM. Running Windows 98 second edition. What could the problem be?

Try uninstalling SIMS and then go to an MS-DOS prompt and run scanreg /restore. Pick a date before like DEC24 or Dec23 and you can restore your registry back to a time before the problem started. No guarantee it will fix it, but it would not cause any harm. I have had a few clients experience troubles installing that game, but I had no troubles when I tried it, so hard to say why it happens. Also make sure your case is well ventilated, a hot CPU will not install big programs very well.

It appears your CD-ROM is not reading any CDs if I understand your post. Remove it in device manager and it will reload the drivers for you on reboot.

The CD ROM is displayed in the device manager and it does state it is working properly when checking the properties. Whenever I place any CD in the ROM I hear it spin once and after that it stops spinning. I have never cleaned the CD ROM before nor have I cleaned the dust out of the PC yet. I will clean the PC using a compressed air can. Should I consider purchasing a CD ROM cleaning kit to hopefully resolve this problem?

my CD ROM will read other CD's but wont read the Sims CD. I have a Dell Windows XP. Why wont it read the CD?