Whenever I put a CD-ROM in my hard drive, the CD-ROM doesn’t open on its own anymore and my hard drive does not read the disks at all. When I go to Start > Run > Browse > Desktop > [E:] to try to get the CD-ROM to work, I get a message saying, “E:\ is not accessible. The device is not ready” with the option of clicking retry or cancel. When I click retry, the same above message just keeps appearing. When I used to put CD-ROMs in (I mostly only used one – Encyclopedia Encarta), as they were starting I could hear my modem making normal noises of responding so I knew it was opening the program, but I don’t hear any responses anymore when I put CD-ROMs in. Does anyone know what I should do to get my E:\ drive to function? When I go to My Computer and right-click on E:\ drive to check the System Information on it, a message pops up: “There is no valid media in the drive. Make sure you have a disk inserted, and drive door is closed.” I checked and it’s inserted just fine, and the door’s shut all the way. It also tells me some information about the drive: free: 0 bytes, used: 0 bytes, selection: 0 bytes. It tells me 0 bytes whether or not I have a disk inserted – is that normal? Whenever I right-click on the E:\ drive to check the properties of the drive, the used space, free space, and capacity are all 0 bytes, whereas my C:\ drive has 311 MB of memory left, and my D:\ drive has 934 MB left. My second question: I’ve never taken my computer (I bought it in 2000) to get “cleaned” and there’s a lot of dust inside (in the back) the modem where the fan is, so is that preventing my E:\ drive from working since the disks themselves are clear of dust and scratches? And if I take it to get cleaned, is there a possibility that something could go wrong and I may lose all the files on my hard drive? If so, what can I do to save the files before I get my computer cleaned? I have music files saved on my drive and since my computer’s not reading disks, I can’t save them to a disk before I take it to get cleaned – should I transfer them to another computer altogether? Thanks for your help!

How are you inserting a CDROM disc into your hard disk drive? Impossible. ;>) It could be your CDROM drive is dirty (the lens etc), the drive has died (it happens), or windows has hiccupped and lost some of the parameters for the drive. In which case (the latter), if it's an IDE/EIDE/ATAPI drive, you would open Device Manager, and remove the CDROM drive from your system. When you reboot, the hardware wizard will start (providing the electronics on the CDROM drive are functioning), find the drive, and reassign appropriate parameters for the drive. If your system is dirty, it's a simple matter to open it up, and use compressed air (outside preferably) to blow out the dust from the system/components/power supply. I also use a natural animal hair, 3/4" wide paintbrush to gently "scrub" the board/components. (Synthetic hair paintbrushes can cause static electricity which can harm electronics.) If you deem the above too risky for you and take it somewhere for "cleaning", it's ~unlikely~ you would loose files/data, as long as it's a reputable place you take it to. It's a good day when you learn something

Files on the hard drive are (semi) permanent - even if the entire motherboard melted, the files would likely remain on the drive. Clearing the dust away from the vents and the processor fan ensures good cooling - overheated processors don't last long. You could (carefully) do it yourelf with a small (1") paintbrush and/or compressed air. A dirty CD drive might well be what's preventing discs from being read - those need to be cleaned separately with a kit or cleaning disc. The drive may have other problems - it may be time for a replacement According to the manufacturers, the green discs last up to 75 years, gold colored discs last up to 100 years and platinum colored discs last up to 200

Hey Dan Penny ; ) No, no, it has to be one inch! (heh) According to the manufacturers, the green discs last up to 75 years, gold colored discs last up to 100 years and platinum colored discs last up to 200

Don't take any chances. Purchase a DVD writer and back up all your valuable files.

This bit confused me: "(I mostly only used one – Encyclopedia Encarta), as they were starting I could hear my modem making normal noises of responding so I knew it was opening the program, but I don’t hear any responses anymore when I put CD-ROMs in." Your modem is used to connect you to the Internet, not to open programs. DerekW

There is truly a dizzying amount of mangled terminology in the post According to the manufacturers, the green discs last up to 75 years, gold colored discs last up to 100 years and platinum colored discs last up to 200