Audio CDs intermittently play, but Media Player gets error: "Windows Media Player cannot find the specified file". This happens whether or not I'm connected to the Internet when the CD is inserted. Not sure why Media Player is looking for a file at this point. It recognizes an audio CD in either of my CD drives, but any attempt to play it by hitting Play/VCD or Audio CD/ and selecting the drive, results in the same error message. Occassionally, I can close Media Player and the CD is actually playing and the audio is fine. If I open Media Player or any other CD player at that point, I can't control the play using any of the buttons on the player. My CD drives are on my secondary IDE channel. Same problem occurred with Media Player 8.0. Also not able to eject the CD from the drive. It seems that the control functions are just not working. If I stop Media Player and start CD Player from accessories/entertainment, that player does not recognize the fact that there's an audio CD in the drive. Any ideas?

And here's the answer! If you have multiple CD drives on your system, regardless of which IDE channel they're on, you'll have this problem. Go to Device Manager and right click on the CD drive you don't need and disable it. The remaining drive will now play audio CDs just fine, providing of course that you have an audio cable connected.