Vista - vista won't even read boot disc...

when i first got my windows vista home premium 32-bit with SP! i was stoked
i was able to watch DVDs, play video games and do whatever i wanted
but now suddenly my E drive won't read a thing

no, the discs are not at fault, please do not suggest this is the problem
i have read 100+ threads on the internet from people who are having the same problem as me

so now i want to reboot my computer with the operating system disc which came with the laptop, but my disc drive can't even read that to fix the problem!!!

any help would be muchly appreciated

Your CD drive or DVD drive is missing or is not recognized by Windows or other programs

thanks, i tried everything that site suggested but to no avail, it still won't read discs

all i want to do is get my computer to read the operating system disc so i can reboot the thing

Try this registry fix
xpcd.reg

ok i clicked on it, but nothing special happened, is there something im supposed to do with that file?

try rebooting the computer

thanks...but this whole thread is about getting my computer to read the reboot disc..

is there any other way to reboot the pc?

you should not need a disc to reboot your pc. just press the power button on the computer (once to turn it off, then another to turn it back on)

is there something wrong with vista necessitates the use of a system disc?

do not be afraid to do this. i have had to fix this type of problem many times

yeh lol i definetally tried to restart my computer...hundreds of times
my problem is that no matter what i do i can't get the E drive to read anything

**update

ok so i figured out that my E drive won't read PC DVD-ROMs, including DVDs and games that are DVD ROM (like C&C 3 tiberium wars) and ther operating system disc(that reinstalls the conputer)

but it will read normal PC-CDs such as C&C generals
when i try to install generals though, once it's about 35% installed an error message pops up that says

"Error 1305.Error reading from file C:\Program Files\EA Games\Command and Conquer Generals\AudioEnglish.big. Verify that the file exists and that you can access it."