HP Writer 9100 problem

[Ding]

Have just built my first PC.
XP2800 Barton
Asus A7N8X rev 2.0
Geil 512MB
9700 Pro
IBM 180GXP
Hercules Digifire 7.1
All went well until I started to use the CD drive to read some data disks I had created as a way to transfer data from my old machine. Had to install DirectCD and since then the drive has been less than reliable.
Disks are able tobe read sometimes but not others, and the drive refuses to eject disks alot of the time. Have uninstalled DirectCD, but problem persists.
Have just loaded Delta Force Black Hawk down okay, but when I try to start the game the drive just keeps on trying to read the disk and nothing else happens.
Other symptom is that on some occasions when shutting the system down, it doesnt. It just sits there, screen blank but the system either never shuts down completely or never restarts.

Need help....wife is about to go nuts and most probably have mine for breakfast

[David_Jones]

Is this an internal CD-ROM?

I seem to recall an HP Writer 9100 being an external (USB?) drive?

If it is external, you might want to borrow a spare cable to see if that is the problem?

David.