DVD DRIVE WON’T PLAY DVD’s

I recently brought a Samsung 12X DVD/40X CD model #SD-612. It will play all kinds of media accept DVD discs. I have Power DVD 3.0 software for playing DVD’s. The program indicates that there is no disc in the drive. When I go into my comoputer and try and access the drive it indicates drive is not ready. System is 350MHz MMX, 64MB Voodoo 5 video card AGP, Sound Blaster Live Sound card. 192 MB of RAM. I can’t the regional code until it can read the disc. I’ve tried updating the firmwire and I have contacted Samsung and Power DVD with little success. Could some please help[ me solve this puzzle.