Troubleshooting CD/DVD Drives
Before doing any work, please establish a
System Restore Point. Also run
PC Fixer.
A Study show this application can fix 40%
of CD/DVD issues. Additionally, live
technicians are available at 1-888-490-0570
You can access the whole troubleshooter on one page here.
If you lack the time, here are some quick tools to try.
If you are familiar with the Device Manager and see a yellow exclamation point(s) next to your drive(s), see this article for possible quick ways to deal with the accompanying error codes. The article goes beyond Microsoft's article, which suggests just one fix. According to the experience of the company I work for, Microsoft's fix involving removal of the upper and lower filters for the optical drives, is a good one for CD/DVD issues but resolves the problem less than 1/2 the time.
62 different specific causes of CD/DVD Drive Failures grouped by main causes. It's good to review these if you have time.