7 does not recognize some cds

I have a brand new HP laptop with Windows 7 64-bit. I've successfully installed a lot of really old sofware but some software install cds and some of my old data cds simply are not recognized. I insert the disc - the drive spins and flashes its little light and then stops dead. The system does not even recognize that there's a disc in the drive.

I've tried several searches on this forum but I guess I'm not entering the right terms to find anyone else who's had this experience.

All suggestions will be appreciated.

Thanks
Mary

most cds in question are pristine - having been stored in cases or sleeves. On the other hand, some that read fine have slight smudges on them. That's what makes this so frustrating.

I don't know much about the technicalities of cd creation but I'm wondering if some older writers had some flukey technique that isn't recognizable by new drives - perhaps some weird identification label or file indexing. My problems involves both data cd's created on older computers and commercially produced software install cds.

I insert one of these problem discs, the drive comes up and after several seconds it stops. When I look at "my computer" it doesn't even show that there's a disc in the drive.

Mary

PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!! Because things worked at first, it never occured to me to look at the device driver until now. Device manager gave me the "windows cannot load the device driver..." message but when I went to update the driver it told me that the proper driver is installed. Huh?????

Went to the "drivers" forum and found the answer in a thread called "CD/DVD driver problems". Followed the steps given there and I'm good to go.

Many thanks for your replies

Mary

Glad to see you have resolved your issue. One more thing to consider as you put the discs away is environment. Don't store in very cold, hot, or extremely dry places. Environmental factors also need to be considered when storing discs.

Understood. I'm not worried about extremes of hot or cold or especially dry. Mildew is our biggest enemy because we're full time cruisers on our sailboat and our range is from Maine to The Bahamas. A couple of layers of plastic bags seems to keep the mildew at bay - so far, at least. I'd love to leave the discs in some climate-controlled environment, but that would present its own set of issues. We do what we can.