Hello pitufohead, Have you tried going to the Dell site and enter your service tag number and do a search for the available drivers\updates for your system? Sometimes you will have to search for them. Your HL-DT-ST DVD+-RW GSA-T11N should be listed in the downloads for your system. If it is not, there are none available. If you just used the Dell Support site you will get generic answers for your issue. I have seen this issue occur and the laser for reading the DVD disk has ceased to work. If this is the problem, a replacement would be required to resolve the issue. Hope this helps.

Thanks, Hanspuppa.  For some reason, my tag number is not recognised whenever I enter it.  It says it's invalid.   Why would that be so?  I am in Mexico but bought my laptop from the USA.  I even tried the tag number on Dell Mexico but got the same result.  The strange thing is, the laptop I am having problems with is a second one I own which I have not used very often at all.  I know it was working properly until a few days ago when I installed Vista updates which were very large.  After that, I noticed the DVD drive no longer played DVDs, just CDs and data discs.  As I said, I tried the Dell troubleshooting  procedure (relevant to my laptop model) which includes deleting the upper and lowers things from the registry, using the test in safe mode, etc but none of that worked.  Also, is it not strange that my DVD drive has no firmware updates, apart from that file in the link I posted before (which I am reluctant to try)?

Hi pitufohead. :emotion-1:

For some reason, my tag number is not recognised whenever I enter it.  It says it's invalid.   Why would that be so?  I am in Mexico but bought my laptop from the USA.  I even tried the tag number on Dell Mexico but got the same result.

Are you using the Service Tag Number that is shown in the Dell Support Center (if you have it installed) and is also listed in the BIOS (using F2 at Startup)? It is most likely case sensitive so that you will want to enter any letters in uppercase. It seems like it should work on either the US or Mexico sites because they are most likely using the same database, if not then the Dell US page would be the way to go since that is where it was purchased.

I know it was working properly until a few days ago when I installed Vista updates which were very large.  After that, I noticed the DVD drive no longer played DVDs, just CDs and data discs.

This is what I would do if you are pretty confident that it worked up until the Vista Updates.

1) Create a manual restore point.

2) Uninstall the Updates one by one testing the DVD functionality after each uninstall (reboot after each uninstall) to see if you can pinpoint one of the Updates as being the cause.

3) If you can pinpoint one then you can reinstall all of the Updates except that one. If you find that none of the Updates was the cause then you can restore the manual restore point that you created.

As I said, I tried the Dell troubleshooting  procedure (relevant to my laptop model) which includes deleting the upper and lowers things from the registry, using the test in safe mode, etc but none of that worked.

Deleting the upper and lower filters removed the burning functionality from whatever programs were associated with those filters. You will probably have to uninstall/reinstall any burning software that you have once the DVD issue has been resolved.

Also, is it not strange that my DVD drive has no firmware updates, apart from that file in the link I posted before (which I am reluctant to try)?

If the firmware update does not exactly match the drive that you have, do not use it because the drive will no longer function. Most firmware updates are issued to correct specific problems with the drives and those issues are listed in the information about the firmware on the Drivers and Downloads page. In almost all cases they are not necessary and it is not unusual to see no updates for specific drives. As a rule I don't update my optical drive firmware because of the chance of a failed firmware update. There is almost no chance of recovering from a failed update. Replacing the drive after a failed update is not uncommon.

Thanks for the help.  I tried all those tip & none worked.  I went on holidays, came back & restored my computer to the original factory settings using Dell's utility.  My drive still didn't work properly but after the Windows updates & a reboot, my drive works perfectly.  It was all quick & painless, mostly because I had no data on that computer that I needed to back up.

Thanks for the update, pitufohead. That's interesting that the image restore itself didn't solve the issue but I'm glad to hear that it is now working correctly for you.