Hi. This is really frustrating! I run a Toshiba 8000 Tecra laptop that has been completely trouble free for four years. Last week I decided to upgrade my
Windows media player to 9.0 (I run Millenium) and upgrade the Directx to 9.0.
After the download, I found my CD/DVD rom to be unusable. You can insert a data disc, and it will read the contents, but if you try to access any file, a fatal error locks up the computer. Insert a Media Cd and it freezes immediately. The device manages says the CDROM is working porperly. I have tryed changing and reinstalling the driver.
Any thoughts...............

Thanks, Jim

luckycat@neobright.net

Normally, I'd suggest uninstalling Media Player 9, and DirectX 9 and restoring/reinstalling Media Player 8, and DirectX 8 but...

I found this at WinPlanet.com dated Mon 2/3/03:

There are a couple of issues with installing the new version of Microsoft's free CD, Internet radio, and audio- and video-file player. First, while you can install Media Player 9 via Windows Update, you might prefer to download and save the installer (9.7MB for Windows XP, 13.3MB for Windows 98 Second Edition, Me, or 2000) from this page, so you can copy it to and run it on a second or offline PC.

Second and more serious, you can't change your mind about Media Player 9: Microsoft suggests using System Restore before setup so you can later roll back your entire PC to its prior state, but that's a poor attempt to fudge the fact that you can't uninstall the player. Decide you liked Media Player 8 better? You're hosed.

and this at Microsoft.com:

The DirectX 9.0c runtime cannot be uninstalled. We recommend Windows Me and Windows XP users turn on a "System Restore" point before installing. For information on turning on a restore point, please refer to the following Microsoft Knowledge Base articles:
Windows Millennium Edition: Microsoft Knowledge Base article 267951.
Windows XP: Microsoft Knowledge Base article 310405.

I'd never heard about these problems, but I'm not surprised. Maybe you should try to restore your system to a restore point which pre-dates your Media Player and DirectX upgrades.

Maddhatter62

Thanks for your input, but I tried to roll-back to an earlier restore point, but for some reason, all the earlier points are gone! Microsoft suggested installing a "fix" before installing MP-9, but the fix was nowhere to be found on their site! Only found one reference to it on the web, and those fools wanted to charge me $9.95 for the download! (sent an advisory letter to Microsoft)
If nothing else in the way of suggestions pops up here, I will ghost the entire drive to my USB hard drive, reinstall ME and re-up the data minus DX9 and ME9. Scarry what?

I think you can only use restore points set up in the same calendar year, so if your restore points were set in 2004, once we reached January 1, 2005, they became inaccessible.

Read below about where restore points are stored:

Any Restore Points that are created either manually by you or automatically by your OS are stored under C:\System Volume Information. You won’t be able to change the location of this folder and if you’re using an NTFS-formatted partition you won’t be able to access these folders, either. When it comes to using System Restore you’ll want to be sure that important files aren’t lost when you take a step back in time and make use of a Restore Point. Any items stored in the My Documents folder will be safe, but files stored elsewhere may not fare so well. To ensure that the contents of an important folder remain untouched you can make an alteration in the Registry and add its location to a list of protected items.

Maddhatter62