I thought I read this before, but can't find the thread.

When I try to play WWP, it says "please insert the Worms World Party CD into your CD-Rom Drive". The CD is in, I am running in compatibility mode for 98 (I am on XP) w/ 256 colors, and I have played it before on this machine. Help!

Most likely, your CD-Rom drive reader is worn out and you need to replace the drive. That has happened when I had WWP on my Windows XP computer (It's on my Windows 98 computer now.).

Plainplane:)

No, I have 2 drives, and neither work. This also happens on my school computers.

Update the game.
http://wwp.team17.com/main.html?page=comm&area=_down_patc

Try to patch it with all of 3 versions--one of them should work.

re-install and check the disc for scratches and stuff

I installed WWP on my XP machine and it worked like a charm...until I DLed the US patch (i live in the US). I got the "insert cd rom" error but the CD WAS in the drive. I just DLed the UK patch and go figure, that one worked. Who knows. Alls good and I'm killing worms with worms.