CD/DVD drive problems

I'm rebuilding an HP tower PC for a friend following v*r*s problems that seemed to have trashed the hard drive and stopped Windows being able to start in any way whatsoever.

This is the second time this has happened - she'll learn!

Originally it was running Win 7 and was able to play DVDs. However the rebuilds have had to be XP (don't ask). I've rebuilt Windows, downloaded and installed the various hardware drivers. All ok.

However I cannot get it to play DVDs. It'll play CDs but when I initially tried to play a DVD WMP said no suitable DVD decoder was installed. I installed one and - just once - a brief piece of music was played but no picture.

I've tried various DVD codecs, both free and non-free, no improvement. I've tried different media players, VLC, WinAmp, no difference. They all fail to play the DVD, just giving a blank screen.

The drive is a LITE-ON Combo SOHC-4836K.

Any thoughts on how to progress this?

An associated thought - in the BIOS the LITE-ON is shown as being on a PATA interface. If I were to replace the drive what sort of cheap and cheerful drive would be suitable?

Did she not get a copy of powerdvd or windvd with the system?
Installing either will supply the codec for dvd playback in wmp.

No, she inherited the PC when she left work.

Just install k-lite.

If the issue is with the player and not the drive (people have trouble with windows media player. A media player that will not play DVDs because of codec issues is not much use in my opinion) down load VLC it will play just about any thing.

Regards

Cruddas

+1 VLC
it will play all you need - even iso images of dvd's without the need to mount the iso as a virtual drive

I said in the OP that I'd tried VLC but that it didn't work.

The DVD that I'm using will play on my own XP PC using WMP. WMP does all that I need it do and am quite happy with it.

I've tried the Nero codec that works on my XP PC. Also tried the Corel DVD Pack.

All to no avail.

In reply to a post by cheshire_man:

However the rebuilds have had to be XP (don't ask).

I am asking. Did it come with 7 pre-installed? Did you not have a recovery disk? It there no sticker on it?

The DVD that I'm using...

have you tried any other dvd's, it may be one where a session isn't closed or something.