Hi! I am not the smartest person when it comes to computers, so I'm gonna you all, if you have a few minutes, and can possibly help me in any way with my problems, I thank you in advance! Here is the problem: I have a computer, its only about 1 1/2 years old. Its a HP. Wonderful computer, except for now! All of a sudden, for really, no apparent reason, the Computer itself has stopped reading the CD Rom Drive, as it cannot 'find' it. It constantly clicks, as I think the compuiter is trying to read it. There is nothing stuck in there, and it will not open at all. Also, if that wasnt enough of a problem, you can literally only work on the computer for like 5 minutes, because, again for no apparent reason, the computer freezes. It is just horrible, as I work from home, and my whole life is based on this computer. To get someone in to fix it will be a lot more than I can afford, and getting a new computer is strictly impossible for me at this time. I thank you for reading my 'book' of problems. Any and all information anyone has is GREATLY GREATLY appreciated! Thanks you very much!

sure sounds like a virus to me.

First of all, NO HP. DO NOT BUY ONE, but too late now. Could be an Operating System problem. If you got a installation cd for windows and not a repair disk, I would boot to dos via a boot disk and reinstall windows over it. (CDrom will most likely work in dos.) Like he said, virus scan isn't a bad idea. But Windows installations tend not to stay stable over a year.

Without very detailed information it's really difficult to troubleshoot what you've described. As a general first rule i'd say to update your virus definitions, then boot into safe mode (tap F8 on boot) and run a full system scan. Or use the online system scan at symantec's website. While in safe mode also run Scandisk, or any Norton utilities if you have them. The CDROM problem could be that the drive itself is just going out, they do that when they get old and dirty. Most HP's come with restore disks. You may be able to use it to restore the system without deleting any of your personal files. If you use it read the prompts carefully, as one of the options will format the drive.

When you say it can't find the drive, do you mean the icon does not show up in Explorer at all? Or is it there but you just can't get the PC to read a CD? If it is the second one, this is likely to be a problem with the CD drive itself, a mechanical problem in view of the clicking. If it is the first, then I go with the advice to reinstall the CD drivers. If it is a mechanical problem you have no choice but to get it fixed or replace the drive - they are so cheap that replacement is probably the best option.

hello goto my computer right click it and choose properties,and goto device manager and look at your cd drive any problems showing? you can right click it and chose remove it and reboot computer. this should fix that problem. next for the frezeing try the things in this link how to run m.e well verion 5 http://www.burzurq.com/forum/trevtweak.html and in case you got a virus or trojin try these links free trojin scan http://www.trojanscan.com/trojanscan/scanner.htm panda scan http://www.pandasoftware.es/activescan/ housecall http://housecall.trendmicro.com/housecall/start_corp.asp nrav av http://www.ravantivirus.com/scan/ avast cleaning tool http://www.avast.com/i_idt_171.html mcafee avert stinger http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/ scans for open trojin ports http://scan.sygate.com/pretrojanscan.html test my sheilds grc https://nanoprobe.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2 have a nice day Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of the people I had to kill because they pived me off

back then when you bought that i was still reccomending hp's but not now. Anyway it could be a virus but you need to keep your av software uptodate regardless. Anyway There could be other reasons your cd drive could be dying and or the freezing could be due to overheating chances are if your cd drive is dead or dying you could have a bad power supply which also could be causing the freezing (bad power supplys also damage components. My reccomendation is first see if there is a virus if there is remove it. If there was and your cd drive works now reinstall windows you probably have a restore cd so it should not be that hard. If a virus is not the problem and you are not comfortable working on your computer take it to a trustworthy proffesional.