I put a CD in and system freezes.

I have a DVD Rom and CD/RW. The drivers are all updated and the hardware is recognized. I have tried all combinations of master/slave to the hard drive as well as on IDE 2 but everytime I put a cd of any kind into either drive (even blanks), it freezes my whole system to the point that I have to cut the power. I reboot, with the CD(s) still in, then it will read & work fine. What is the problem? Lori