I Tried to play a purchased copy of Gladiator, the movie, tried to change the region and it would not let me, still trying to locate firmware, but near impossible, when he bought the notebook it had a dual boot with Ubuntu and we took it off and got rid of the partions, as the drive was not working in it either. Thought this might resolve the problem but sadly no. Will play burnt cd ,will read data dvd eg game manual, but will not even recognise dvd, will not open in my computer, when you put it in the drive the light goes on you can hear it turning, then it just stops, but when you open the drive it is still turning. very frustrating, hoping you will have some ideas,once again Many Thanks for your help. It was a pre install Windows 7 Ultimate so we do not have a disc to do a repair.