AFTER DOWNLOADING ITUNES 8.1, CD drive NO LONGER recognizes nor plays music cds

Hi, Brilamar:

iTunes is well known to cause the famous upper and lower filters problem. Please go to the CD/DVD FAQ and follow the instructions for a "code 39 error".

Once that is fixed, I suggest you use an older version of iTunes, since 8.1 has been especially troublesome.

Thanks Osprey,

I did go to the CD/DVD FAQ and followed the instructions for a "code 39 error".

I have not re installed itunes yet.  Where can I find the version prior to "Genius"  Genius has made my computer life miserable so I don't want to reinstall it. 

How do I download VLC?  I think I accidentally removed it.

Thanks again 

Only 1 1/2 hours?  Lucky you.  I spent 7 hours of my Memorial Day Holiday on the phone with DellIndia - to no avail, problem remained. Even though the Tech could not fix the problem, he made the obligatory sales pitch to sell me a year's contract for Tech support. #$%^&*()_+  What good would it do if you cannot fix the problem, I inquired - then he tried to sell me another Dell Computer - No way!

The next day, I called AppleIndia, they had me uninstall itunes for the 4th time, now they want me to make a 4 hour round trip to their Apple store to get a CD for downloading itunes and then download itunes from a CD, rather than online  Can you mail it I asked - No way, they replied!  So tomorrow, I am off to their store.  I'll let you know if it works - of course, they guaranteed it would!     Hopefully, I won't get the sales pitch.

Today, I contacted Microsoft because one of the Apple people said, it really is a Microsoft problem.  I have not heard back from Microsoft but it is listed on their website at the top of the problem stack.  I clicked on their Mr FIXIT who said he couldn't fix it.

So here I am, feeling "dumb" for downloading itunes 8.1 with "Genius". 

If anyone can help me resolve this problem,  I'd be forever thankful :emotion-2:

I have the same problem.  The first time this happened I was on the phone with someone in India for over 1 1/2 hours and he finally got it working.  Then I upgraded my protection program, and it was lost again.  So I took it to a computer shop and they restored it.  I'm guessing he installed any needed updates, too.  Tonight I was using itunes and it prompted me to update to 8.1, and the computer froze and now the cd drive isn't recognized yet again.  I am not that computer savvy, and haven't found the error 39 instructions mentioned in the follow-up response.  Where exactly is that, and also, as asked, how do I then download an itunes program that won't do this?  Is it an itune problem or a dell problem?  My computer is still under warranty and I've been tempted to send it back...   Please help. Thanks

I used a program CCleaner to uninstall Itunes 8.1, http://www.ccleaner.com/download.  I would then close down.windows before installing the new iTunes version. This is an earlier version of Itunes. http://www.oldapps.com/itunes.php