run the dell diagnostics with a cd in the drive and see if any errors come up.

to get to diagnostics, tap the F12 key at startup and choose diagnostics from the list.

if you get any error codes for your optical drive call dell and get the drive replaced.

Yes, actually. I heard from someone that the optical drive that came with most Dell laptops (TSST) was a faulty drive and had a lot of problems. I called Dell support and after about an hour or so of complaining to people and being redirected to other departments and numbers, I was sent a new drive that works perfectly with Rosetta Stone. It was free of charge, and I was given 10 days to decide which drive to keep and send one back or I'd have to pay. Hope you have some luck with this, most people tried to tell me it was the CD itself, but I have two other Dell computers with different makes of drives that the program works with, so I kept telling them that and telling them that I knew that specific drive had problems, and I got a new one. Hope it works out.