After running without problems for a while, my CD-ROM has developed two problems. 1. It often tries to run multiple sessions of an autorun cd-rom. This makes installing from a cd-rom difficult and annoying. It also makes playing games or using a CD-ROM-based program difficult. 2. It sometimes fails to recognize that a CD-ROM has been placed in the drive, so nothing happens. Any thoughts.

1). The first thing to do is go into Device Manager and make sure you do not have more then one INSTANCE of a CD-ROM driver. Quite often, multiple instances of a driver will cause the second problem you mentioned. In this case, all of the driver instances may have a yellow (!) exclamation mark thru them. Click on the CD-ROM driver and check the General Tab and see if it says "This Device is Working Properly." If your CD-ROM drive is recent (within last 2 - 3 years) it should be PnP so all you have to do is delete the drivers, re-boot and Windows should autodetect it. You will need your Win 98 or Win 95 CD. If it is NOT PnP, you will need your CD-ROM installation disk (check http://www.windrivers.com in case you don't have an installation disk). You may have to pull the CD-ROM physically in order to discover who the manufacturer is. This is the first thing to do...check to see if you have too many instances of drivers in Device Manager. The second problem sounds like it might be a corrupted CD-ROM BIOS problem. Newer CD-ROM's have an on-board BIOS in the device itself (this is NOT the same thing as your computer BIOS!!!!!). In this case, the manufacturer might have a flash upgrade to fix the problem. BE CAREFUL, FLASHING A BIOS CAN BE HAZARDOUS. FOLLOW ALL INSTRUCTIONS THE MANUFACTURER GIVES TO THE LETTER!!!!!! If after checking to make sure the CD-ROM is installed correctly, that there is only ONE instance of a CD-ROM driver in device manager, that the device is working properly and you have attempted to flash the CD-ROM BIOS (you must get this from the manufacturer of the CD-ROM!!!!), and it STILL does not fix the problem, I say, replace it. It's a defective CD-ROM.

the two symptoms are likey connected. ie the same reason that the cd isn't detected is probably why it sometimes starts up then 'gets disconnected' then redetected again, prompting another autostart as you are experiencing. the advice re device manager is good, but have you checked that the jumper on the cd drive and the hard disks are set correctly? ie most boards have 2 ide connectors , each one capable of handling two devices. that is one ribbon cable from each connector with two connectors on each cable. if you have a drive and cdrom on the same cable the hdu should be set master and the cd as slave. if the cd is on a cable of its own it should be master. in bios ensure you haven't specified a hard drive where the cd really is...safest is to set all ide drives to autodetect. check your autoexec.bat and config.sys for any reference to your cdrom , eg a mscdex type line and remove the lines . and as said above go into safe mode remove all cdroms in device manager and let windows find it again. (hint : if windows does find it and asks for the driver off the cd don't panic, it is already there, try the paths c:\windows\system or c:\windows or c:\windows\help even in these circumstances )