Insert CD -- drive temporarily nonresponsive

[Mike]

When my friend inserts a CD into his CD drive, and the drive
light comes on for a few seconds, and then goes out (normal).
He then tries to access the drive via Windows Explorer,
Explorer becomes unresponsive for about 2 minutes. When it
finally comes back, everything is fine and he can read the disc.
This problem did not occur when the computer was new, but
he is not sure when it started happening. This also happens
when he insert blank media. While Windows Explorer is
unresponsive, he can click on icons on the desktop and select
them, but he can't start any programs.

I also recently added a DVD burner to his system, and it does
the same thing, both with CD and DVD media. I was hoping it
was isolated to the original CD-R/W drive.

OS is XP Home. This machine is a Dell which came preinstalled
with Roxio Basic 5, which I uninstalled thinking there might be
something that DirectCD was doing, but that didn't help.

Win XP's native burning capability is disabled.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[Rich Barry]

Mike, check at Kelly's
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_abc.htm Select C and scroll to
Cdrom.