For the sound thing, two steps. First, click on Kmenu > Multimedia > Sound > Kmix. The Kmix icon (a sort of speaker thingy) should appear on your taskbar (usually on the RH side). Right click on this, select "Show Mixer Window" and whack up the volume under the CD icon.

Second, KsCD (the application you use to play music CDs in Kde) has a horizontal volume control of its own. (Often missed!)

I'm pretty sure the "other thing" is the result of a missing (or incorrect) symlink. You might like to google for something like

linux CDROM CDRW