So with the activity light coming on we now know the power is there on both drives. Normally after that period of slower flashing it would/should start to flash much quicker indicating it is reading the CD but you do not get that. Try checking the Device manager click Start click Control panel click System click Hardware click Device manager Now in this new window look for yellow exclamation or question marks. Double click on any if they are present and see what it brings up. If no yellow marks then look for and double click on DVD/CD ROM drives, click the various tabs looking for error messages or it telling you the device is working properly. When you try a CD are you using a music CD or some software program? Try a music CD then open Windows Media Player and see what happens when you try to play the music. We might be clutching at straws here but if you exhaust all avenues before spending your money on a repairman it might be worth it.

Many thanks for your reply yosemitebill. I now understand but I hadn't realised that the mp3 files became uncompressed in the CDA format (this is the first time I've attempted this sort of thing). Thank you once again.

a model number may be helpful (to somebody) That's the reason I don't buy multiple-disc changers, there's too many mechanical things to go wrong. It may be beyond repair and/or may happen again. You may have to just dismantle the whole thing ....

Sounds like maybe the darker color thing mentioned above may also play into it. My 2001 Grand Cherokee ( factory am/fm/cd/casette player) will not recognize burned CDs. i am currently using my laptop with XP and have tried windows player, I-tunes and BurnerXP but haven't noticed any different results from any of that different software. After going thru about 30 cds burning at different speeds and formats, I finally got it to occasionally recognize one I burnt at around 4X using PCM .wav (uncompressed) format but to recognize and play I usually have to fast forward it thru a couple of songs while it is doing the initial read. Once it recognizes and starts playing then will usually play the whole CD but doesn't always work for whatever reason. I may try the label thing or try to find some of the "dark" cds to see if that matters. We have a 98 KIA witn an aftermarket cd player and it will play just about anything burnt to cd no matter format or speed.