Why Does A CD Drive Not Recognize an Adobe CD?
 

I tried to install Adobe Dreamweaver into two different CD drives tonight, and it's like I inserted an invisible CD. No recognition whatsoever. Is this the CD drive or the computer itself reacting? I've installed other non-Adobe programs without a hitch (for the record, it won't accept Illustrator or Photoshop either). Dreamweaver is readily accepted in another computer, as were other Adobe programs, but I prefer this computer for Dreamweaver. I tried so many ways to get the computer to recognize the disc but nothing happens. Nothing ever kicks in. Why does my computer hate Adobe?!

Maybe it's a DVD? A CD drive wouldn't recognize it...

Is this Windows or Mac? Are you sure it's a CD and not a DVD?

If it's a CD and it's Windows, there may be something hosed up re the autorun setting.

Can you go to "My computer" and see the CD in the drive? If so, can you open it? If you can, you can probably just double click the install icon for Dreamweaver and it should work.

I occasionally see this behaviour for some unknown reason, but have always been able to prod it into action.

Of course, if this is a Mac issue, then forget I said anything!

I'd be happy to help troubleshoot if it's a mac issue, but I would like to know if it is a DVD/CD issue first.
A mac would also simply mount the disc, even if the rest didn't work. No real workarounds there.
You could go into the system profiler and look at hardware to see if anything pops up in the CD drive or go into the disc utility to see what shows up, if the disc is perhaps corrupt.
Did you look at the disc-- it's not scratched? Scratches are read differently by different computers. Your drive might read differently than the other.

Okay...I looked at the disc; it's a DVD! Doh! Now, what can I do...is there a way of attaching an external drive easily? I'd really rather not open up the computer and insert a new one, though maybe it's not that difficult?

They have external DVD drives that would connect with USB, but it's really easy to open up the computer and add an internal drive. And you could buy a DVD drive/burner very cheaply.

You need it anyway...

Okay, I guess I have a mission today. :D

Yeah. Get a DVD burner while you're at it. It will be a big help in this line of work.
They're very cheap now.

Replacing them is as easy as opening the case, unplugging any cords and putting them into the new drive. Done.

Or an external drive would be ok, too. That would allow you to keep your existing CD drive, so you could copy from that to the external (for CDs anyway).

Warning: if this happens to be a laptop (or a mac with a slot loading drive), then replacing it won't be easy. Go with external.

The one other option would be to copy the files to your computer via another computer (and an external drive, etc.) then mounting the disc image using some freeware/shareware/etc. But considering you'll want to do this more in the future, getting the drive is a good idea. And, as I said, they're very cheap now.

Just as an example...

[url]http://www.amazon.com/16X-External-DVD-Dual-Rw/

External DVD burner
 

I had a computer that suddenly failed to recognize the internal DVD/CD burner. The techs could not find the problem but found that externals and other internal models worked.

A replacement of the same model as originally installed would not. (HP wound up replacing the motherboard and a few other things under warranty when I could send it in.)

So to get out a project I had to, I purchased an external HP DVD burner.

So I now have an external lightscribe DVD burner I can move at will to any of my machines with WinXP, and can burn lightscribe labels on one machine (that never had that capability before) while burning the DVD side of the discs on my main video computer.

Thanks! Actually, for my purposes (I have four computers) I got an external burner, and everything is ok now.

:D