DVD's not playing

[Daedalus]

Hi... I have a vaio laptop VGN-FS115Z for a year, and never had any major problems untill now. (curiously they always start with the end of the warranty)
Since a couple of days I am unable to play any DVDs in my computer, and don't know what to do.
The drive seems to work fine, and I can reproduce normal music or data CDs like before. But when I put a movie DVD nothing happens at all, and I can hear the computer trying to read it but it never manages to. It simply doesn't recognise the DVDs anymore.

I would only like to add, that also recently a weird thing happened to my computer when I tried to reproduce this music CD from EMI. In order to play it said that he had to "update some files in the computer". It looked kind of weird, and I think the thing never installed itself properly. Anyways, before that the DVD's were working fine, so I thought that perhaps the problem could be related to this event. Just a wild guess.

I would apreciate any kind of help, since I don't have TV and my DVD player is most needed.

Best regards,


Joao.

[davidbridgeman]

Hi

It sounds like that mystery software is the problem. If you don’t know what it was, or where it is, try to make it install again but this time make sure you know what and where, this will give you a fighting chance to removing it and hopefully restore you DVD privileges.

Have fun, and let me know how you get on

Atticmaster

[kee-lo_]

Sounds like that horrible rootkit thing Sony made - and were told to stop using too.

[Daedalus]

Hello...

I explored the CD again, and it had a unistall that I tried, said everything was uninstalled, but nothing more happened.
My DVD is still not working, and now I can't even read this particular music CD anymore.
The programs he tried to install are something like wmmp.exe, audio.exe or player.exe. I ran a search in my hd and found this records:

C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch\ PLAYER.EXE-2F2ECA2F.pf (the date matches with the day when I first tried the CD in my computer)

C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch\ UNINSTALLPLAYER.EXE-375BCBF8.pf (the date matches today's date when I tried the unistall program)

What should I do next??

Thank you for the attention,
best regards,


Joao.

[tonybeard]

do a system restore matey

[Daedalus]

I tried that last night but unfortunately it didn't work.

Maybe the problem is not related with this copy protection program after all... I don't know.
What is strange is the randomness of it all: there are still some data DVD's that that computer is able to read, others no, and it doesn't have to do with the + or -.
Anyways, the movie DVDs don't work at all.

damn...

joao.

[kee-lo_]

Which CD was it?

[Daedalus]

The CD was released by EMI.

artist: Jacinta
title: "Day Dream"
record: 2006 Blue Note Records.

here it is.
thanks,

Joao.

[kee-lo_]

Hmm does it have a CopyControl symbol?

[Daedalus]

Yes, it has. That circle thing with the triangle.

Anyways, I tried the CD again, it worked this time, I instaled the player program, worked fine, unistalled it, everything OK, but still... Dvd is dead.

And those strange records in the Windows\Prefetch folder have disappeared as well, by the way.

Starting to get worried since i can't possibly afford a new reader.
Isn't it strange that it still reads some data DVD's and other no?

Please advice,

regards,

Joao.