I am running Windows Vista Ultimate and have tried many times to rip CDs in Windows Media Player 11.0.6001.7000 but I'm not having any joy. Every time I try to rip a CD it gets so far through (usually less than a whole song) and then stops. You can hear the DVD-RW slow down then the PC crashes. When I restart, Vista moans it cant load up my Dream-Scene background and I have to do it manually. There are no errors from Windows Media Player or Vista (apart from the background error)

I can listen to CDs just fine but if I try to rip a CD, Windows Media Player refuses to co-operate and the above happens. I have tried to rip the same CDs on a laptop which is running the same Windows Vista Ultimate and the same Windows Media Player 11.0.6001.7000 as my PC, and that works first time, every time.

I have looked on the internet and found a few fixes which I have tried, from something as simple as changing the output file format and bit-rate, to editing the msacm.voxacm160 Registry key, I've even tried going back to a previous install of Windows Vista, but nothing works.

The CDs are in good condition so its not them causing the problem and they work fine on the laptop and will play on my PC, they just wont rip. I have the latest version of Windows Media Player.

Can anyone help me?

Could it be my DVD-RW?

My PC is running: -

AMD Phenom 9500 Quad-Core CPU

AliveNF7G-HD720p Motherboard

2GB DDR2 667 RAM

Pioneer SATA 20x DVD-RW DVR-215D

Have you tried turning off the Dream Scene before the Rip? With only 2 Gb memory, the Dream Scene can be a huge memory hog.

What about cleaning out the TEMP file, you may have a bunch of stuff left over there.

Does your Pioneer DVD have the latest Firmware?

And yes, it could be the Optical Drive on the way out, I have seen a few of these dud on new machines (not specifically Pioneer ones)