I've had my computer for almost two years now. Over the past few months, my DVD Drive has simply stopped working.

I put a DVD in, the appropraite program fails to auto-start. I start the program
manually and it tells me that the DVD cannot be played and may have been scratched in a way which prevents playback. Strange then, that when I should then go to the DVD player on the TV, or even to my brother's PC, it is only too happy run it.

I've also tried to open 'My Computer' to see if the disc is being acknowledged to which 'My Computer' freezes and my only option is to end task.

Well, I put up with this up to now, quite happy to watch my DVDs on the TV. However, today I bought Fifa 2006 in DVD ROM format, thinking my drive would make an exception for the game, because it wanted to make me happy. It is clear now that the drive did not want to make me happy at all, as the game was simply rejected like the DVDs and was greeted by the drive with little more than a rythmic quiet roaring every few seconds before dieing down again.

I firstly came to the conclusion that I should simply buy a DVD ROM lense cleaner and, hopefully, all will be well. However, after some research on the web, the symptoms for the need of a lense cleaner have been skipping during a DVD, not the lack of any playback at all. Despite this, I am no expert of the ways of the DVD ROM drive and consequently have no other ideas.

Basically, I went help. Any ideas?

Cheers
BB

Sounds like a bum drive to me...I'd say replace it.

*nods* reminisce about the time you had with it, maybe drink a toast in it's honor and give it a proper burial, preferably with explosives.

unfortunately, drives have a life-span too. time for a new one. this time, maybe do a little research to see which ones live longest. i have my 2 original lite-ons (dvd and cdrw), and they were really inexpensive. easy to update, reliable and still ticking.

V***V

[ 10-04-2005, 01:17 PM: Message edited by: vesselle ]

Blunderbuss, sounds exactly the same problem I had with my CD-ROM drive. Replace it is the best advice I can give.

Vesselle, thanks for info on Lite-On. I've been looking at this brand for a new computer I want to build and I think I'll go with two in my next one.

DVD roms are incredibly cheap now i paied $50 ($37 US) for mine, and that was around a year ago now, it was a liteon and as vesselle said, they are relaible.

You could consider upgrading to a dvd burner since you have to replace it anyway.