0XC00D10C7 Fix: 'This is not a media CD' in WMP

Windows Media Player throws 0XC00D10C7 when it can't read the disc as audio or video. Here's the three-step fix that actually works, plus why it happens.

You put a disc in, Windows Media Player grunts back at you with 0XC00D10C7 and the words "This is not a media CD," and now you're staring at a disc that works fine in your car stereo. Annoying, right? Let's fix it.

The fix (start here)

Ninety percent of the time, this is a format mismatch. WMP is trying to read the disc as a CD Audio (CDDA) disc, but the disc is actually a data CD, a DVD, or a mixed-mode disc. Here's what to try, in order.

1. Confirm what kind of disc you actually have

Open File Explorer and look at the disc drive. If it shows files and folders like .mp3, .wav, or a bunch of .cda shortcuts that don't play — that's a data disc, not an audio CD. WMP will still play the MP3s, but it won't rip them as tracks.

If the drive shows nothing at all in Explorer, the disc itself might be dirty, scratched, or the drive is failing. Skip to the "drive-side" section below.

2. Change how WMP handles the disc

Close WMP completely. Eject the disc. Reinsert it while holding Shift to stop autoplay from grabbing it. Now open WMP manually and:

Click the Organize menu, then Options.
Go to the Devices tab.
Find your CD/DVD drive in the list and double-click it.
Under Audio CDs, set playback to Digital and uncheck "Use error correction."
Under Data CDs, pick Take no action and set "When inserting a data CD" to open with Explorer instead.

Apply, then try playing the disc again. If WMP still complains, jump to step 3.

3. Force WMP to treat it as data, not audio

In WMP, go to File → Open and browse to the CD drive directly. Don't click the drive in the left navigation tree — actually navigate to D:\ (or whatever letter your drive uses) and pick a file. If the tracks play this way, you've confirmed the disc is data and WMP's auto-detect was the problem.

To make it stick, clear WMP's disc cache. Close WMP, then delete the contents of:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows Media\12.0\WMSDKNS.DTD
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows Media\12.0\WMSDKNS.XML

On Windows 7 the path uses 13.0 or 11.0 instead of 12.0 depending on your WMP version. Reopen WMP and try again. This clears the metadata cache that sometimes gets stuck thinking your disc is something it isn't.

Why this works

NS_E_CORECD_NOTAMEDIACD literally means "the CD recorder expected a media CD and got something else." The Windows Media Format SDK (which WMP uses for CD operations) checks the disc's Table of Contents when it mounts. If the TOC doesn't match the CDDA layout — 2-channel, 44.1kHz PCM audio in 2352-byte sectors — WMP refuses to rip or burn.

The catch is that WMP's autoplay handler is aggressive. It grabs the drive the moment a disc appears and assumes audio CD. When it's wrong, it doesn't gracefully fall back — it just throws 0XC00D10C7 and gives up. Forcing the device options and clearing the cache breaks that bad assumption.

I had a client last month — small accounting office, Windows 10 Pro 22H2, decent Dell OptiPlex — whose receptionist was trying to rip an old training CD from 2004. Mixed-mode disc: data track plus audio track. WMP threw this error every single time. The device-options fix above got her back to work in about four minutes.

Less common variations

Region-locked DVD masquerading as a CD

Yes, this happens. If you've got a region 2 disc in a region 1 drive (or vice versa), WMP sometimes reports it as 0XC00D10C7 instead of a region error. Check Device Manager → DVD/CD-ROM drives → Properties → DVD Region to see your drive's region and remaining changes.

Insufficient burn permissions

If the error appears during a burn, not playback, it means WMP can't write to the staging folder. Check that %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Burn\Burn exists and that your account has write access. Missing or locked folders throw this error too — Windows Update sometimes recreates them with wrong ACLs.

Third-party burning software conflict

Nero, Ashampoo, or old Roxio installs can hijack the drive filter drivers. If uninstalling that software isn't an option, open an elevated Command Prompt and run:

regsvr32 /u wmpshell.dll
regsvr32 wmpshell.dll

Then reboot. This re-registers the WMP shell extension without touching the third-party app.

Drive-side problems

If nothing above works, rule out the hardware. Try the disc in another machine. Try another disc in this drive. Boot a Linux live USB and see if the drive reads the disc there — if it doesn't, the laser is dying and you're looking at a $20 replacement drive, not a Windows problem. Slimline laptop drives from 2010-2015 fail constantly; I've swapped dozens.

Prevention

Two things save you pain later:

Stop using WMP for ripping anything older than 2010. Use Exact Audio Copy or dBpoweramp. Both handle mixed-mode discs properly and don't throw cryptic COM errors when the TOC surprises them.
Label your discs. Seriously. The number of times I've watched someone fight this error for twenty minutes only to realize they grabbed the wrong jewel case is not zero. It's a lot.

And if you're still on Windows 7 with WMP 12, migrate. The CD subsystem in WMP hasn't been meaningfully updated in over a decade, and the error reporting is genuinely awful. VLC or foobar2000 will play almost anything you throw at them without the drama.