DVD probs

With your old one, did you remove and reinstall the drivers? Drivers can get corrupted and the hardware will not work properly if the drivers have not been checked first. The laser eye may also be blocked.

My first response to cd or floppy problem is to shutdown, blow out the drive with a can of air, potentially run a cleaning floppy/cd through the drive, test. Then if still not working, re-do the drivers; then if still not working try a new one.

The fact that a new one works, points to some physical or logical problem with the old one. But, if you haven't done any cleaning/testing with the software -- then we cannot tell you with any certainty that you had a hardware problem with the old drive.

Are you smoking ? That's the worse situation: nicotine on the lens and the semi-transparent mirror separating in/out stream of light.

First, eject a dvd and stop the PC with door open. Open the pc box, remove the DVD reader, gently open the dvd cover pressing onto the three clips of the plastic frontplate. You can blow gently onto the lens (not too hard because the lens is retained by tiny springs onto a soleno?d).

Replace everything onto place and try again.
Do no touch th lens and avoid liquid solvent that could leave an opaque film on it or dissolve plastic parts. Some degreaser sprays can be used for it, but be cautious.

I had the exact same problem with the player on my boat. I was able to get one of those cleaning disks that has the small brushes built into it. After using the cleaning disk, the problem went away.

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