Hello All I'm new on this list so I hope that my question meets with your guys approval. I'm not a techie, but I enjoy doing some troubleshooting for friends from time-to-time. (Think I should start charging though:-). I've checked MS KB and ran through all there articles I could find and attempted all their suggestions, but I am still getting this error message when I install a CD ROM into the drive. The message says: MMSYSTEM296 The file cannot be played on the specified MCI device. The file may be corrupt, or not in the correct format. <OK>. The specs of the machine are as follows; PII350. PC100 M726 mainboard, 128Mb ram, 8Gb Hdd. Sound is from a Soundblaster PRO variety integrated on the motherboard. It has a SiS6326 Display Card and by the looks of things, an unbranded 36x CD ROM. I have in addition to the above, FDISK'ed and re-installed everything twice. Second time to make sure I didn't stuff up the first time. I have disabled the Sound card in the BIOS. I must have tried just about every other trick I know. The error message does not appear on my PC, so I assume it is not the actual CD that is corrupt. I've transferred the files from the CD to the hard drive, so I assume the CD ROM is not bad. I have changed graphics cards. All to no avail. I guess all I'm looking for is support in telling my friend that he should decent PC's from reputable dealers and not the S#@t that he did buy. Unless of course there is a genuine solution to this problem. TIA Brendon Do you want to signoff PCBUILD or just change to Digest mode - visit our web site: http://freepctech.com/pcbuild.shtml