PC won't recognize audio CD

Neither my desktop nor my laptop will recognize the disc when I pop it into the tray... and just to be clear, it’s an original full disc, not a blank one.
When I try to run it, it just asks if I want to open it like a USB flash drive or burn it like a blank CD-R. I'm totally lost here.

Do other devices recognize it? Like, if you fire up Windows Media Player and hit open, does it actually try to play the file?

fadedorca66 said:Do other devices recognize it? Like, if you fire up Windows Media Player and hit open, does it actually try to play the file?

It's not like the disc is blank or anything... I've tried a few different ones and it’s the same story every time.

So, you're telling me not a single audio CD works on any of your different players? Come on, that's impossible. Are you absolutely sure these are actually standard audio CDs?

I tried burning maybe 3 or 4 different CDs, but one of them is just straight up broken—it won't play on my desktop or my laptop at all.
It gives me the exact same error message on both machines.
It's an audio CD, sure, but if I'm making a new one, what should I be doing differently?
It ought to work fine in iTunes or Windows Media Player. 🤔

And do those CDs actually play fine in standard American audio players?

ironcyclist58 said:And do those CDs actually play fine in standard American audio players?

Yeah, I tested a couple and they work fine, like in my car setup.
Is there some kind of issue with the Windows OS or what?

It works totally fine on my other computer; it picks up the audio CD without any issues.
But whenever I try to rip all the tracks from the disc onto my USB drive, the files transfer over just fine, but then they won't play back from the flash drive... It's an original disc, so maybe that's the problem?

You can't just copy and paste files like that. The whole process of moving music from an audio CD to, say, an MP3 is actually called ripping. I guess if you Google "how to rip an audio CD," you'll find a tutorial that works for you.