CD access

I thought computer CD drives were ancient news, a solved problem, a triviality.  I can't believe I downloaded (a rather cool) program that can't access my CD drive like everything else I have can.  That program is foobar2000.  I did a beyond token amount of web searches trying to get it to work, stopping short of downloading some other program (Nero) to help it do it's job.  I just wanted to rip some songs to FLAC and was dumbfounded that the CD wouldn't access.  I may try again.