iTunes will not recognise my CD/DVD drive

Could you post your diagnostics for us please?

In iTunes, go "Help > Run Diagnostics". Uncheck the boxes other than DVD/CD tests, as per the following screenshot:

... and click "Next".

When you get through to the final screen:

... click the "Copy to Clipboard" button and paste the diagnostics into a reply here.

Yeah, firmware looks good and there's no other obvious issues showing up in there.

What makes and versions of security software are you running on the PC, bruce? (On rare occasions, if (say) a firewall rule for iTunes is dodgy, and interferes with a Gracenote query in just the right/wrong way, it can prevent a CD from showing up in the Devices column.)

I use Windows Firewall (6.1.7601.17514)

Quickly doublechecking on that one just in case.

iTunes is showing as an allowed feature or program, as per the following document?

How to enable iTunes in the Windows Vista and Windows 7 Firewall

If it is, let's try recreating the rule, just in case. (Rules can go bad, especially just after an install of iTunes, or an update to a higher version.)

Quit iTunes first. Remove iTunes from the allowed list. Restart the PC. Add iTunes back in to the allowed list. Restart the PC again and try launching iTunes. Any better luck with CDs in your Devices column?

If not ... I had another look at the diagnostics and finally (sorry about that) noticed something a bit odd.

Current user is not an administrator.

Is that true? Or does your Windows user account have full administrative rights? (If you are an administrator, the error in the diagnostics results might indicate some odd iTunes permissions problem.)

I have full administrator rights so it would appear there is some odd iTunes permissions problem.

Okay. By way of experiment, we'll try doing a "Run as administrator" then.

First, quit iTunes if you have it open.

In Computer, open Local Disk C:\ or whichever drive you have your program files installed on.

Open the "Program files (x86)" folder.

Open the "iTunes" folder.

Right-click the iTunes.exe file and select "Run as administrator".

When iTunes is running using the Administrator group's permissions rather than your user accounts permissions, are you seeing CDs in your Devices?

Is it just one particular CD you're having the trouble with, bruce? Or do no audio CDs appear in Devices?

Please look what's wrong with my CD Drive, thanks

Diagnosis posted below

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic Edition Service Pack 1 (Build 6001)

MSI MS-7309

iTunes 10.6.1.7

QuickTime not available

FairPlay 1.14.37

Apple Application Support 2.1.7

iPod Updater Library 10.0d2

CD Driver 2.2.0.1

CD Driver DLL 2.1.1.1

Apple Mobile Device 5.1.1.4

Apple Mobile Device Driver 1.59.0.0

Bonjour 3.0.0.10 (333.10)

Gracenote SDK 1.9.5.502

Gracenote MusicID 1.9.5.115

Gracenote Submit 1.9.5.143

Gracenote DSP 1.9.5.45

iTunes Serial Number 0013A74402FB8828

Current user is not an administrator.

The current local date and time is 2012-05-27 17:25:48.

iTunes is not running in safe mode.

WebKit accelerated compositing is enabled.

HDCP is not supported.

Core Media is supported.

Video Display Information

NVIDIA , NVIDIA GeForce 7025 / NVIDIA nForce 630a

**** External Plug-ins Information ****

No external plug-ins installed.

iPodService 10.6.1.7 is currently running.

iTunesHelper is currently not running.

Apple Mobile Device service 3.3.0.0 is currently running.

**** CD/DVD Drive Tests ****

No drivers in LowerFilters.

UpperFilters: GEARAspiWDM (2.2.0.1),

E: HL-DT-ST DVD-RAM GH10L, Rev FC09

Data or MP3 CD in drive.

Found 1 songs on CD, playing time 03:14 on CDROM-XA media.

Track 1, start time 00:02:00

Get drive speed succeeded.

The drive CDR speeds are: 4 8 16 24 32 40.

The drive CDRW speeds are: 4.

The drive DVDR speeds are: 4.

The drive DVDRW speeds are: 4.

Change your drive letter from B: to another letter. B will now work with iTunes. I just did the same thing.

Ohhh, good catch Stew. I missed that entirely when working with bruce.

You're right ... B:\ is usually reserved as a Floppy drive (technically, the non-boot floppy), and it's best not to have an optical drive assigned to B:\

Thank you Stew.

I have a DVD and Blu-Ray reader writer and can't get them to work with iTunes. I bought an external DVD writer and that was ok.

Today, I decided to look into this problem and did a web search. Up came your comment (made just a couple of days ago).

I put the computer together myself and forced the optical drives to A and B to avoid conflicts with hard drive names. The optical reader seems to work normally otherwise, but audio disks are not recognized by iTunes.

I took your advice and renamed them - now they work with iTunes.

Thanks a million - and unthanks to Microsoft who could have either warned me about this (via a message when I assigned letters) or could have fixed the problem as (I assume) no one uses floppies today.

Thanks Stew!

Amazing how you find the correct and simple answers from other users and not the official troubleshooting guides.