DVDs not playing help

Question

I have an inspiron 6000 with a nec dvd+rw nd-6500a. My dvd player will play some dvds others will not play at all. One disk has 2 movies on it, one side plays fine the other will not play past a certain scene with either windows media play or power dvd. Other disks from the same company will not play at all and when I do a search it says there is nothing in the player. I recently upgraded RAM memory which didn't fix the problem. I have also done a flash from firmware, but still no luck. I have also uninstalled and reinstalled the cyberlink power dvd program and have download all updates. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Balaji Ramanath · Answer

Is the movie getting stuck at the point when it transitions from one layer to the other on a dual-layer DVD?  Maybe, your DVD player is not able to play Dual-layer DVD's for some reason.  How old is the DVD drive?

yankeebob · Answer

no it is not getting stuck it goes to a secondary menu then I go to main menu, select scene and nothing past that point plays computer is 3 years old Message Edited by yankeebob on 03-12-2008 04:27 PM

Skybird · Answer

Message Edited by Skybird on 03-12-2008 03:40 PM

Balaji Ramanath · Answer

Does that same DVD play properly on other computers or in a standalone DVD player?

yankeebob · Answer

This dvd and all the others that don't work on my lap top play fine on dvd player and a friends lap top

Balaji Ramanath · Answer

Run a diagnostic on the DVD drive (F12 from the dell Logo screen before the OS boots up) and see if it spots anything wrong with it.  It looks like the drive has failed or is on the verge of doing so.  Best bet may be to replace the drive.

yankeebob · Answer

Diagnostic all pass Where is best place to get a new one that fits my computer.

Balaji Ramanath · Answer

Any electronics retailer (brick and mortar or online) should have laptop internal DVD drives for sale.  Most of this stuff is quite standard in terms of size and interface, so you should not have a problem popping out the old one and popping in a new one.  If you don't want to do that, a better option might be to buy an external USB DVD drive.  That way you can hook it up to any computer (even one that does not currently have a dvd drive).

Storage, Drives & Media

DVDs not playing help

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