Lately when I try to rip/burn CDs (let’s not even get into a discussion of that), there are several possibilities as to what will happen:
- It will go successfully. (Rarely.)
- The file will be subtly corrupted.
- The disk will whir loudly and refuse to go at all.
- The computer gets very hot, I hear loud whirring fans, and then it crashes.
These problems have never happened before, and the computer doesn’t crash while doing anything non-CD-drive related. My computer is a laptop (c. June 2004), which I understand are known to overheat much more than desktops, and a Dell, which I understand are known even more for overheating. Ergo, heat leads to crashing? But what leads to the heat? Has my CD drive given up the ghost? How can you tell for sure? Should I just throw up my hands in despair and buy myself a nice external CD/DVD drive? (Don’t have the knowhow to install one internally, don’t know someone who would do it for free, and don’t care to pay someone mucho dinero for doing it.)
Any help you’d have to offer wrt this problem would be very much appreciated.
And yes, I have read the FAQ but still decided to take my chances! 
Hard to say for sure.
Those who manufacture DVDs/CDs and such have been working diligently to place roadblocks in the ways of ripping/burning their products. I forget the product a friend used but it was a popular CD ripping/burning software. One day the program suggested he upgrade which he did and then all of a sudden he could no longer burn some things. Turned out the new software upgrade included some code to recognize copyrighted material and stop. He uninstalled and reinstalled the old product and all was well. It’s been awhile but there used to be a thriving EBay market for older CD burning software precisely because it did not contain the inhibitions newer software often does.
All of that is to say that it is possible something in the burning process you are using may not like it if you are burning something it deems you shouldn’t be doing. Some game copy protection schemes actually installed a hidden “device” on the PC that flaked out CD burning software. Presumably it was only to protect their own software but there were many a post on the web about how this caused crashes and who knows what (I forget the exact software but I know my [legal] copy of Freedom Force threw it on my machine). The company eventually posted a special removal tool to get rid of it but if it wasn’t there the software that looked for it stopped working too.
Of course it could be a dying drive. Laptop CD drives are not terribly robust. Usually you can replace the drive with no fuss as generally CD drives in laptops these days are removable with a press of a button. Something to check and see if pulling yours out is that simple.
Heat can certainly be an issue especially on laptops. Anything that causes the processor to work is a big heat creator. Ripping a CD will keep the processor working pretty hard (note most of the time your processor is idle when the PC is running…even when programs are open). Running the CD drive is another heat creator (motor spinning the drive).