Cdrom wont play music cds'

try preinstalling windows, there is nothing else you can do, it think .. :)

If I remember correctly Windows 98 had a setting for playing cd's digitally instead of analog. I think this was set in Multimedia Properties in control panel. I don't have a Win98 machine ehre to look at right now to tell you for sure, but if you find it try switching between digital and analog.

This is a fresh install on Win98se.

I went into Multimedia (control panel) and under the cd music tab, "enable digital cd music" is unchecked and  shaded out. I'm unable to change this setting.

thanks,
        bill

Did it work before?
I don't think this should not freeze the computer, but do you have the small wire connected to CD-Rom and sound card?
Does this CD-Rom have the buttons on the front of it that you can push to play the CD? (Some do, but most don't)

Yes I have the audio cable connected from CDrom (tried both) to the sound card.
 Only buttons on the front of cdrom's are stop/eject.
Worked fine before the re-format. This is the second format now. I'm getting desperate!!

thanks,
          bill

have u tried to play any of the music CD file manually in winamp or windows media player??
means by Open command.

but first do one thing......don't set Winamp & Windows Media Player as default player to play the music CDs.....uncheck the box which reads PLAY MUSIC CDs in both players preferennces.
close both the player......now insert a Music Cd.....surely none of the player will try to play this CD.....as no one is the default player for playing Music Cds......now open winamp or WMP......and click on Open in the menu bar.....browse the Music Cd....and select any song present in it.......click open....is this time also the player hangs up??

if yes then u will have to think abt the repairing of Windows....coz may be some system file has got corrupted.......so we have to check that is it the windows problem or not??

but first try the above suggestion....come back and tell us the results......meanwhile we search more on ur problem, Good Luck :)

BTW......does this "hang up" problem alos happens when u play a Mp3 song sotred on the hard drive......or what happens when u play any online song??

Even when Default players are turned off, I can't access the Audio CD.
My PC hangs when I try to open/explore the music cd.

Mp3's play fine from the hard drive.

And this is the second fresh install of Win98se in the last few days, so I doubt if anything is corrupt.

thanks,
           bill

then why don't u try to uninstall the drivers for both CD-R & CD-RW and let windows to reinstall them.

How to do that: goto Device Manager...uninstall the drivers for both CDROM and CDRW.....and restart the windows.....windows will automatically install the appropiate drivers for the CDROM and CDRW....and in any way it will not find the drivers then it will prompt u to insert the drivers CD or floppy came with the CDROM or CDRW.....install the drivers...and then try to play the music cds.....

if still no joy, then try replace any of the CDROM or CDRW with any other CDROM or CDRW......if no problem with them...then u have to check ur CDROM and CDRW for damage. if u r unable to play music cds in other CDROM and CDRW also......then u have to think abt reinstalling windows or atleast repairing it.

Repairing can be done by just running the setup.exe of win98 again in DOS, it will not remove ur programs but u have to register them again as windows will restore its original registry again.
also u will loose ur personal settigns of windows like backgrounds themse, start menu cursors settings etc. So just be carefull to backup all the personal Data before installing or reinstalling Windows.

try these steps and if u have any question come back :)

Sheharyaar,
                 thanks so much for your help. I deleted each cdrom from device manager just before shutting down. Than I would change CDR-W to secondary master and CDrom to secondary slave and so on and so on.....

 After the same results for 3 days, I decided to Flash my CDrom only. This solved the problem. It now plays Audio CD's. I didn't Flash the Philips CDD1401/71 CDR-W. I've read some mixed reviews on that particular firmware so I opted not to tamper with it. It still does burn after all, it just won't play Audio CD's with more than 10 tracks.
 The CDrom works great now, so that will be music CD player.

 Thanks again!
Regards,
             bill
           

For some reason a firmware upgrade never entered my mind. Glad you got it worked out!