# Solved: Windows Media Player won't play CD's, plays DVD's okay



## dragonwoman (Oct 30, 2013)

I have a Toshiba netbook running windows 7 pro. I have an external CD/DVD drive which has always worked just fine. As of yesterday, when I put in a CD (that WILL play on another laptop just fine) windows media player puts up a small window but never fully loads (just an hourglass and hover says - WMP not responding). When I put in a DVD, WMP opens and plays normally. I haven't tried to play a CD (audio book) in several months, but they were playing fine when last I tried to listen to a book. I know that Windows does automatic updates pretty frequently. Has something changed that I can fix?
I even tried a brand new external cd/dvd drive in my netbook and the results were the same (DVD plays okay, CD won't play but I never get an error message, just the hung Windows Media Player that says it's Not Responding.


----------



## Oddba11 (May 13, 2011)

Test the drive on another PC. Sounds like the drive is faulty. CD and DVD are seperate and it's possible for one type to fail while the other continues to function.


----------



## dragonwoman (Oct 30, 2013)

Oddba11 said:


> Test the drive on another PC. Sounds like the drive is faulty. CD and DVD are seperate and it's possible for one type to fail while the other continues to function.


I tried a brand-new out-of-the-box external cd/dvd drive as well and receive the same results. Although I haven't tried either on another laptop yet, I think it is unlikely they are both bad, and in such an odd way.


----------



## Oddba11 (May 13, 2011)

Insert a CD, close WMP when it hangs and then see if you can browse the disc contents using Windows Explorer or My Computer. If you can browse the disc, it's not a drive issue. In which case, WMP is just botched.


----------



## dragonwoman (Oct 30, 2013)

Since media player comes packaged in Windows7 I couldn't uninstall and reinstall it. 
But by going to control panel/programs and features/turn windows features on/off, I was able to turn off media player and reboot, then turn it back on and that worked like an uninstall/reinstall. problem fixed!


----------



## Oddba11 (May 13, 2011)

Glad you got it figured out.


----------

