Cd burner my acer 5100 laptop came with the cd burner in it and it worked fine for a few weeks. But now everytime i try to burn a cd, windows media player and other forms of burning music, say that i must connect a burner. How do i do that?

maybe it need a cleaning, use a cd lens cleaner try to clean first the drive, then play an audio cd, if you can play now try to burn again.

Try uninstalling your burner and restart your computer. The computer should find it again on it's own and install it automatically once restarted.

Put the CD from yesterday into the CD-burner, and open the CD with Windows Media Player. Does it open?

try nero if no try roxio if no den alcohol 120% if no replace burner

Check if the DVD region on DVD burner proprierties is set to same region of your player OR use sw like ShrinkDVD to create Region free DVD.

why my windows media burn list isn't burning a cd

My only suggestion is to borrow another burner if possible and see if you get the same error with with that one. This will be the simplest way to determine if you have a software problem or if your burner has a fault.

Can you see the drive in (my computer)? What software are you using to watch DVD'S? Is this a burner or just a DVD drive? You need software to burn DVD'S and CD's. W indows has this but it is not that good. Try Nero to burn disk. Try Power DVD or another player like Divx. Windows Media player should play them if it is updated.
Make sure that you do not have auto run turned off. You will find these in the properties for your DVD drive.

1. Try cleaning the lens with a cotton swab and isopropyl alcohol and making sure it is dry before trying it again. Please make sure laptop is not plugged in and battery is removed before you do this
   
2. return to seller and ask for warranty
3. if warranty is expired then you need to buy a new dvdwriter. Cheapest probably you can get it in ebay

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first off go to system information and find details of cd drive and write them down.
next click start,right click my computer,select properties,click hardware,click device manager.locate cd drive and delete.close all windows and restart.on restart system will detect new device and reinstall and more importly reconfigure.this should do the trick