Why do CDs have holes in the middle?
365704
Because in the olden days, that's how they were spun in the CD players - you'd mount the CD on a round "nob" in the middle of the CD player, and so it would spin the CD like that.
918929
There is a little wire that goes from the back of your CD drive to your motherboard. Make sure this is not loose.
1101024
The disc is covered with a transparent coating so that it can be read by a laser beam. \n\nNormal CDs can not be modified -- they are read-only devices. A CD-R disc needs to allow the drive to write data onto the disc. For a CD-R disk to work, there must be a way for a laser to create a non-reflective area on the disc. A CD-R disc therefore has an extra layer that the laser can modify. This extra layer is a greenish dye. In a normal CD, you have a plastic substrate covered with a reflective aluminum or gold layer. In a CD-R, you have a plastic substrate, a dye layer and a reflective gold layer. On a new CD-R disc, the entire surface of the disc is reflective -- the laser can shine through the dye and reflect off the gold layer. \n\nWhen you write data to a CD-R, the writing laser (which is much more powerful than the reading laser) heats up the dye layer and changes its transparency. The change in the dye creates the equivalent of a non-reflective bump. This is a permanent change, and both CD and CD-R drives can read the modified dye as a bump later on. \n\nIt turns out that the dye is fairly sensitive to light -- it has to be in order for a laser to modify it quickly. Therefore, you want to avoid exposing CD-R discs to sunlight.
185416
Ok, that's a "classic" problem, I guess...\n\nI have two solutions...\n\n1) If the CD that you are trying to access is burned, then it's a good chance that the CD was not burned properly. "Not burned properly" could mean one of two things: it wasn't finalized (which really only affects audio CD players) or that the information was not burned to the CD. If the CD wasn't finalized (which shouldn't cause a problem for a computer since multi-session discs which allow you to add data to a CD more than one time play fine "un-finalized") you should re-open the program that you used to burn the CD and finalize it. I am unsure which program you may have used, but the terminology of "finalize" could also be "close session" or something to the effect of "don't allow any more writing of data." \n\n2) You should replace your DVD writer (you said that you had a combo drive?). You don't have to replace the entire computer...that's preposterous and like treating a sore thumb with amputation of the arm. The beauty of computers is their modular make up, where if one thing goes wrong, or becomes obselete, you can just replace that. Don't feel like you were misused by the store or company; these things are made in factories at high rates by machines that may make mistakes from time to time. To me it isn't worth it to try to get it repaired because these things are so accessible to the average joe, that you could probably buy one for less than it would cost to get fixed. \n\nIn the end, computer "problems" are really computer solutions waiting to happen. The more problems that you have and fix, the more you learn...until finally you need no one's help. The next thing that you know, you'll be finding computers to fix...you might even get into computer tweaking and overclocking...\n\nBut let's get the drive right first...:=)\n\nHope that helps...!
115795
clean the disk from center to the outside with a clean non abrasive cloth. The manufacturers of CD's recommend using a record cleaner. Windex works great. Alcohol can possibly damage the cd.
82379
The format of a DVD is different to a CD.  Something very popular now is Dual Disc, which has the DVD option on one side and the CD option on the other.\n\nA DVD player and CD player are constructed differently, their inner workings operate uniquely from the other.
1112608
actually, cd covers these days are created by people highly trained in the art field and in digital imaging. I know - I go to an art college and I see the hard work that people put into those cd covers. Some of them may not be that great, but think about what you are saying. Artists created these!
221343
CDs store music and other files in digital form -- that is, the information on the disc is represented by a series of 1s and 0s.In conventional CDs, these 1s and 0s are represented by millions of tiny bumps and flat areas on the disc's reflective surface. The bumps and flats are arranged in a continuous track that measures about 0.5 microns (millionths of a meter) across and 3.5 miles (5 km) long. \nTo read this information, the CD player passes a laser beam over the track. When the laser passes over a flat area in the track, the beam is reflected directly to an optical sensor on the laser assembly. The CD player interprets this as a 1. When the beam passes over a bump, the light is bounced away from the optical sensor. The CD player recognizes this as a 0. \nThe CD fabrication machine uses a high-powered laser to etch the bump pattern into photoresist material coated onto a glass plate. Through an elaborate imprinting process, this pattern is pressed onto acrylic discs. The discs are then coated with aluminum (or another metal) to create the readable reflective surface. Finally, the disc is coated with a transparent plastic layer that protects the reflective metal from nicks, scratches and debris. \n\n\nIn response to this demand, electronics manufacturers introduced an alternative sort of CD that could be encoded in a few easy steps. CD-recordable discs, or CD-Rs, don't have any bumps or flat areas at all. Instead, they have a smooth reflective metal layer, which rests on top of a layer of photosensitive dye. \nWhen the disc is blank, the dye is translucent: Light can shine through and reflect off the metal surface. But when you heat the dye layer with concentrated light of a particular frequency and intensity, the dye turns opaque: It darkens to the point that light can't pass through. \n\n\n\nA CD-R doesn't have the same bumps and lands as a conventional CD. Instead, the disc has a dye layer underneath a smooth, reflective surface. On a blank CD-R disc, the dye layer is completely translucent, so all light reflects. The write laser darkens the spots where the bumps would be in a conventional CD, forming non-reflecting areas.\n\nBy selectively darkening particular points along the CD track, and leaving other areas of dye translucent, you can create a digital pattern that a standard CD player can read. The light from the player's laser beam will only bounce back to the sensor when the dye is left translucent, in the same way that it will only bounce back from the flat areas of a conventional CD. So, even though the CD-R disc doesn't have any bumps pressed into it at all, it behaves just like a standard disc. \n\nA CD burner's job, of course, is to "burn" the digital pattern onto a blank CD.\n\nThe CD burner has a moving laser assembly, just like an ordinary CD player. But in addition to the standard "read laser," it has a "write laser." The write laser is more powerful than the read laser, so it interacts with the disc differently: It alters the surface instead of just bouncing light off it. Read lasers are not intense enough to darken the dye material, so simply playing a CD-R in a CD drive will not destroy any encoded information.\nThe write laser moves in exactly the same way as the read laser: It moves outward while the disc spins. The bottom plastic layer has grooves pre-pressed into it, to guide the laser along the correct path. By calibrating the rate of spin with the movement of the laser assembly, the burner keeps the laser running along the track at a constant rate of speed. To record the data, the burner simply turns the laser writer on and off in synch with the pattern of 1s and 0s. The laser darkens the material to encode a 0 and leaves it translucent to encode a 1\nthis is why we call it cd burning
37449
With a big enough disk you can explode it due to centrifugal force. The resulting destruction can be severe. This has happened with race cars. (See ref.) That is why flywheel housings ("bell housings")are beefed up in racing.
818556
The side that you're referring to as the recording side is actually a protecive layer. Under that layer you will find a thin foil. The thin foil is acuatlly what retains the data in the format of pits and grooves. \nMore info at: \nhttp://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cd.htm
331112
Try blowing some compressed air in the cd burner/player, there may be some dust that got in there during shipping.  Also, make sure your CD's are clean.
659789
I think you can on the floppy disk on the bottom see the little hole on 1 side and the covered 1 on the other side - simply get your nail in and push it down so both holes are uncovered.
66400
I know that a lot of CD burners can't make a disc with subcodes like are used in CD+G karaoke discs, but they can read them. If you could come up with some scheme that used these subcodes as an integral part of using the CD, you could eliminate copying on most, but not all CD burners
22060
Relax.  When you open the tray you will see that there is a smaller 'inset' to accommodate the mini-CD.  It will rest inside this recess.  When you eject the disk, it will still be there.  \nWARNING; do not use mini-CDs in frontloading car stereos!
755778
Many reasons...\n\nStreaming audio (internet radio etc.). Streaming audio frequently gets interrupted. It cannot be avoided, even if you have the best hardware. You can get slightly better results by increasing your player’s streaming buffer.\n\nRAM. Next to graphics, music takes up a whole lot of RAM memory. 256 to 500MB are fine. \n\nAudio device/ soundcard. Every media player has a Preference section and a Device section. Make sure you select either the Primary device, or a device that corresponds with the name of your sound card.\n\nCD player in System Properties.  Go to Control Panel; System Properties; Device Manager. Look at the CD player properties. Make sure it's not 'disconnected'. Turn on 'auto insert notification' to play CDs automatically.\n\nDAE (digital audio extraction). Always go digital. Go to Control Panel; Performance; File System; CD player. Select 'digital'.\n\nBuffer. A CD player’s buffer stores music before letting you hear it. Check out the player's web site forum for info.\n\nNon-stop, gapless play. I can only listen to non-stop DJ-mixed CDs (without gaps) - if I set up by Winamp player's buffer and DAE correctly.
13362
Try opening it with an unfolded paper clip: There is a small hole just under the CD tray. Insert the unfolded clip until the tray pops out.\nYou probably have a mechanical problem. Check if any foreign objects are in the drive. Although I'm almost sure it will be unusable.
1065555
this cd maybe protect of copy or need to clean \ntry to use programes like "VirtualDrive" that copy all the cd data and ignore reading problems