DVD failure

ahh..another day of rented movies gone to sh*t. First off I have a Dell laptop, win xp pro. My situation: I play a DVD one day, I finish watching it, stop it, eject it then when I want to play another it doesn't. It just sits there making clicking noises and pretends its just a burned cd thats blank. This is driving me crazy!!! When I put the previous played dvd it plays but will not play other dvds- I tried 10 or so of my other dvds! Me and nihil talked about this before but it worked it itself out so I didn't figure out how to fix it. I tried everything I can think of: cleared temp dirs, prefetch, cleaning the dvd/cd drive/ disks etc! Thanx


kurt

can you discover the DVD player brand? Some brands use to present that behavior you have mencioned, such as LG combos.

It can be a problem that a dvd firmware can solve or

you can replace your dvd driver for another one :) (dont think you want that)

umm...I looked at that option and everything just says dell,dell,dell lol. I could talk to dell but last time they just hung the phone up--a**holes. But anyways I can't even understand their indian accent!

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But anyways I can't even understand their indian accent!

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damn foreigners! i hate them :)

BTW, on windows hardware management, Win identifies it as a "generic dvd drive" or it can show more info about it (a model will be good).

Hmm. I own a Dell Inspiron 9100 and have played many DVDs on it. Never had any problems with it. Is it a removable DVD player (mine is)? Try removing/reseating it.

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damn foreigners! i hate them BTW, on windows hardware management, Win identifies it as a "generic dvd drive" or it can show more info about it (a model will be good).

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lol hey we all are foreigners.! I tried that and its basicly no help but I will try it again when I get home tonight. Maybe I missed something!

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Is it a removable DVD player (mine is)? Try removing/reseating it.

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No its not removeable unless I trow it across my room lol jk! I might have to open my laptop like you said and refit it since I do travel alot with it. But since my cd rom drive works fine I don't see that as a possibilty unless it has a seperate cable<don't think so>! But oh well, I thank you both for pointing these things out

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Originally posted here by kurt_der_koenig
My situation: I play a DVD one day, I finish watching it, stop it, eject it then when I want to play another it doesn't.

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Just thought of something. What region code is your drive? What region code(s) are the DVDs?
I'm not sure what would happen if these don't match..

The DVD on my laptop will ask me if I want to restart a DVD movie from where I left off, if I take it out while it is playing and then put it back in at a later time. Perhaps yours hasn't cleared what ever file it uses to do some thing similar. Then, you would only be able to use the DVD that had worked previously. (???)
Just a guess at what is happening, but I don't have a clue as to how to clear it, if that is what is happening.

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Just thought of something. What region code is your drive? What region code(s) are the DVDs?
I'm not sure what would happen if these don't match..

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Yeah I checked that a hundred times, all of them are region one disks! My drive allows me to change my region code so its not much of problem.

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The DVD on my laptop will ask me if I want to restart a DVD movie from where I left off, if I take it out while it is playing and then put it back in at a later time. Perhaps yours hasn't cleared what ever file it uses to do some thing similar. Then, you would only be able to use the DVD that had worked previously. (???)
Just a guess at what is happening, but I don't have a clue as to how to clear it, if that is what is happening.

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Yes thats what happened to me last time. This time I made sure I actually stoped it with the program and eject it also to maybe deter it. I looked all over my computer, cleared all temp. dirs especially the ones in my dvd player program(s) dir.

Hi Kurt,

I have been giving this a bit of thought. I think that Mox~ is on the right track.........I haven't had the problem with a PC mounted DVD player, but I have encountered it with domestic ones.

Can you try an experiment for me?

When this happens, reload the previous DVD and fast forward it to the end (try restart first, it will be quicker), when it should stop of its own accord. Eject and try another DVD............does that work?

Also make sure that you have all the latest drivers from Dell, and that your DVD software is up to date.

I frequently come across this with CDs from computer magazines, you get bored, stop it in mid flight and it comes back with some message along the lines of: "Please insert disk serial# abc12345"

Also, I am not quite sure if you are doing a cold re-boot in between, or is it just with follow on DVDs? If it is a cold boot then something is certainly getting stored on your machine and not clearing out.

What DVD playing software are you using?

Cheers

I solved my problem today! The solution-until something else comes about: a simple batch file that I made which clears out all of my DVD player(s) temporary directories on start up. Simple and probally primative but hey it works. Don't know why just deleting them myself doesn't do it. Don't know why I didn't think of this earlier. nihil,moxnix, SirDice , cacosapo : thanx again.

Nothing wrong with primative......some times that is the best way. But they should have cleared when you did it manually.