Any CD/DVD causes Windows XP to hang...

I have been having this problem for a while now, but I was able to get over it because after trying the cd after re starting it would work fine! But now it is beginning to piss me off!
What happens is when I insert a CD or DVD into EITHER of the CD drives it starts to swap and then the computer hangs and forces me to kill the power to shut it off. Everything starts back up fine and if I try the cd again it may work! Now I first thought it may be the media I bought, not sure, but it even happens with store bought stuff, like movie dvds, games or music. I am at a loss, I have no idea what can be causing it. It even happens when I copy the cds with CDrWin thinking it maybe the way they were pressed then mounted them with Alcohol 120%, so it isn't just the cd drives! I have read somewhere that it could be my anti virus but what I am supposed to do, totally disable it? Any help would be appreicated, thanks.

Oh and I am using Windows XP SP1.

can you play back the CDs at all or does it crash instantly?

no I can back up the cds fine, it just happens randomly, on the stranges occassions. It really pisses me off on mulit cd games where I will get half way through a game install, insert the asked for disc and the system freezes. Then go to install again and it may freeze on a different disc. But backing up cds is the same, it doesn't seem to distinguish between a virtual drive or one of my 2 actual drives.

what brand is your CD writer?

I have 2, one is a DVD writer, and that is usually what I use to read my cds, so that is when I have the most problems with, but it happens in both cds drives. One is just a play cd writer (under system it says IDE-CD/RW 8x4x32, thats all) the other is a LG 4x DVD+-RW drive.

can you play DVD movies in your DVD drive without skipping?

naw they skip alot, can't really watch them at all, and some times they stall

also another question for you, who is that character in your sig? I have seen him on the net before, chasing a cat, wasn't sure where he is from

Ok, here is the plan, but you have to follow it very carefull or you mess everything up:

go to the console and type in regedit
now go to the path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} (make sure it is the one, you gonna have a teahatload of similar looking ones)

you should have 3 or 4 supfolders in it named
0000,0001,0002 and so on

go to 0001 and 0002, both have MasterDeviceTimingModeAllowed and SlaveDeviceTimingModeAllowed

right click both and change the current to ffffffff (8xf)
I got it in german but it's easy to figure out:


after having set both keys from 0001 and 0002 restart your sys. try if you can watch a dvd now without skipping.

They were already all set to ffffffff so I didn't change anything, but I found the root of the problem. It was my anti virus software. I think it was conflicting with the auto play of the disc, it was set to scan all disc immediatly when placed in drive, so I disabled the anit virus and bingo no stalls. Tried 3 movies and just installed 2 games which were 3 cds each and not a problem. The cds even loaded faster, which was a sign that it was working. Thanks anyways for your help, appreciate it.

a trick? this is not a trick...if he has a DVD rom that got the DMA mode knocked out and set to PIO he has to reset the current to get Ultra DMA back on.

hmm, well....he got it fixed...and i wasted my time...