Speed up CD-ROM data transfer

DMA mode

Windows XP sets DMA mode on IDE channels wrong. Most of CD-ROM devices support this, but Windows XP puts them in PIO ( slower ). DMA wont speed device, but it will use less RAM memory, and that way data transfer from CD-ROM to computer will be faster. 
Go to My Computer-Hardware-Device Manager.
Find "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" and click «+» (plus) near it. Double click on «Primary IDE channel». Look at «Advance settings» and look at Device 1 settings. It's probably set up to PIO transfer mode. Set to «DMA if available». 
Back to "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers". Do same for «Secondary IDE channels» now. If it's in PIO mode. 
If this won't help, you can reinstall IDE channels that won't accept DMA mode. And that you can do in following way:
Right click on IDE channel, «uninstall» and OK.
Restart your computer and look if IDE channel excepted DMA mode. 
IN some cases, you can get only MultiWord, but that's better than PIO mode, too.

Defragment disk drives

Every time you work something on your computer, it write some info on local disk. Fragmented files are spread all around the hard disk and that slows down computer. So, you need to defragment every few weeks. 

How to defragment?

Go to Start - Programs - Accessories - System tools - Disk defragmenter. On defragmenter, just click (and select) disk drive and click on Defragment. After you finish with one disk drive, do the same with another.