Hey, Audio CD's have always been cda, but should be accessible with Windows Media Player anyway. You should have noted before that other programs wouldn't work though as this leads to other issues
Can you run data discs normally without problems?
It seems something to do with the CD drive though, and I would un-install the CD drivers, and then re-install them:
To remove it though, go into the Control Panel and go to System, hardware, Device Manager. Find the CD drive under DVD/CD drives, and right click it and go to Uninstall.
After it has uninstalled, restart the machine.
If all has gone well, Windows should detect a change in hardware, and find the drivers for the CD drive automatically again, hopefully fixing your problem.
This seems like the only soloution if its not the programs themselves.
I hope this helps