Media Player Version 7 Cannot Read CD-ROM Digitally and Configures Itself for Analog Playback (265871)

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows Media Player 7
Microsoft Windows Media Player 7.1

This article was previously published under Q265871

SYMPTOMS

When you attempt to play an Audio CD you may be prompted with the following dialog:

We have determined that Windows Media Player cannot accurately read your CD drive digitally. Windows Media Player will therefore switch to reading your CD drive in analog mode. Your CDs will play, but the following items will not work when playing CDs: Visualizations, SRS Wow effect, Graphic Equalizer.

CAUSE

This behavior occurs when the CD-ROM drive fails the Digital Read test in Windows Media Player. This test is performed every time CD Playback is requested. Windows Media Player is set to playback CDs digitally by going to the Tools menu, Options, and then CD Audio Playback. This test checks to see if it can execute a 1x Digital read.

MORE INFORMATION

This issue generally denotes a hardware issue because the test simply checks the ability of the drive to execute digital reads.

Note: (The following information applies to Microsoft Windows Millennium only) CDinfo.exe can be used to obtain specific information on the test results. For additional information on this utility, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

266017 How to Use CDinfo.exe to Obtain Digital Read Information

Modification Type:	Minor	Last Reviewed:	1/25/2006
Keywords:	kberrmsg kbHardware kbprb KB265871