is my dvd drive dying?

mckillwashere said:

Have you tried any 3rd party dvd players?
Do you have any dvd decrypting software installed or a screen capture program running?
Have you tried to update your video driver?

Tews said:

Have you tried a different Media Player, like VLC player??

i don't have any decryping software or screen capture programs. i do have a codec pack: combined community codecs. all drivers and firmware on my setup are updated. i will try vlc media player and report back aftewards.

That message actually has to do more with your video card/drivers than your DVD drive. Make sure you have the latest official drivers for your video card.

What are your full system specs? All I can gather is your OS. Also, you should definitely make sure your computer is malware-free. Malware can cause all sorts of issues and this one is very similar to what happened to my old eMachines w3400 (in the end the crappy motherboard died). Malware could easily be corrupting your drivers, as was the case for me a few years ago.

MacGyvr said:

That message actually has to do more with your video card/drivers than your DVD drive. Make sure you have the latest official drivers for your video card.

all drivers/firmware have always been updated. i still get the same message.

Windows i7 920 said:

What are your full system specs? All I can gather is your OS. Also, you should definitely make sure your computer is malware-free. Malware can cause all sorts of issues and this one is very similar to what happened to my old eMachines w3400 (in the end the crappy motherboard died). Malware could easily be corrupting your drivers, as was the case for me a few years ago.

i'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with malware as this is a less-than-1-month-old system. also, i don't do anything fishy like download warez or visit weird websites. also, after doing a clean install of windows 7, i put kaspersky internet security on it immediately.

VLC media player works, albeit slower than windows media player, but acceptable. still, the error remains in windows media player, and i also cant get it to work in media player classic home cinemia and windows media center (the biggest problem as this is an HTPC).

at least i know that my drive works and that this is a software (probably codec) issue. what do you guys think?

specs:

windows 7 x64
acer h233h monitor
nvidia 8800gs
abit ip35 pro motherboard
onboard realtek hd sound card
samsung SH-S162L DVD drive