My computer will not recognize my CD ROM?

My computer will not recognize my CD ROM drive (the D drive). For example: when I put a disc into the CD drive, the mouse pointer briefly changes to a CD icon (as it normally does) to tell me -- presumably -- that the drive is scanning the disc for its Table Of Contents. However, the CD icon only appears for a split second (when normally it would take a few seconds to read the contents). When I double-click on the D drive to run the CD, it prompts me to 'Please insert disc into Drive D', when in fact there is already a disc in the drive. Can you tell me why this might be happening? Thank you in advance for your advice.