Hi José, thanks for sharing the drive letter change tip. I went ahead and tried this but unfortunately that didn't solve the CD/DVD intial 'mounting' problem. Still, your advice is MUCH APPRECIATED and will come in handy if I ever want to manually change drive letter names.

I also went ahead and restored my PC back to its EARLIEST POSSIBLE restore date: October 25th, but the problem still persists. At this point I suppose I'm going to have either live with the problem or bravely proceed with EDITING the Registry per Keybplayer Mike's detailed instructions.

I assume it's SAFE to attempt this Registry Edit procedure just as long as I remember to set a new System Restore point right BEFORE attempting this, allowing me (if required) to return to the registration settings as they are now, RIGHT?!

Scott