[mangelb1975]

I have a gateway computer, My computer is saying please insert a disk when there is one in there, it won't accept any of my cd's or dvd's. Also is my disk drive supposed to say drive I? How do I get my computer to accept my cd's and dvd's, my computer is about a year and 3 months old, it started not accepting my disks 6 months ago please help me!!

[robertva]

Version of Windows (XP, Vista etc)? The following should apply to Windows XP, but may apply to Windows Vista as well.

Which disk is listed as I: (Optical drive, external drive or an internal hard drive)?

Is there a "My computer" icon on the desktop? If so right click on the "My Computer" Icon and click "Explore" on the resulting context menu. Does the optical (DVD/CD) drive appear in the left pane of the Explorer window?

Click "Properties" in the "My Computer" context menu. On the "Hardware" tab of the "System Properties" pop-up click the "Device Manager" button. Is your optical drive listed under the "DVD/CD-ROM drives" category on the "Device Manager" pop-up?

[matty0913]

Hey mangel,

The Optical Drive(CD/DVD Drive) can have any letter. The reason it chose the letter I is because you may have a card reader or more than one hard drive installed in your computer. Your optical drive is one of the last drives to receive a letter at boot up.

In terms of why it says to "Insert CD into drive I:", this means it's looking to either finish an installation of a piece of software, or you removed a disc before shutting down a particular program.

Try restarting your desktop/Laptop and see if that fixes the problem.

If it hasn't , then it's likely you haven't finished installing a software package.

If you haven't installed software within the last 6 months through the optical drive, you may have a virus, or your optical drive is on its way out.

You can purchase a new optical drive from any of your major retail stores for around $40(desktop).if you're unsure how to install it, get a technician to do it for you.

Best of luck to you,
--Matty