Blu-Ray Playback is not working now?

Hey guys. Here's my issue. I don't often watch blu-ray movies on my Alienware 17 but Tuesday I tried for the first time in a while and I'm getting errors. I've tried PowerDVD 13 (trial), WinDVD 11 (trial), Arcsoft Totalmedia (trial).
My laptop had an older version of PowerDVD on it, and as soon as I started it up, it requested to update, so I did. Since then I have no blu-ray playback at all. Choosing to run the disc from My Computer would cause Powerdvd to start up, the screen would go black, and an error would pop up prompting me to send an error report. Having Powerdvd open, then inserting the blu-ray, would only show me folders in PowerDVD. It would not play the movie. Windvd and Arcsoft Totalmedia both do similar things. None will play a blu-ray. They will all play a regular dvd though. As will VLC. (Which I could never get it to play Blu-ray anyway.)

Today I upgraded my bios to Alienware 17 A05. I can not think of anything else to do. My Nvidia drivers are up to date as far as I know. (GeForce Experience will not find newer, even beta)

The drive in question is the hl-dt-st dvdrwbd ca40n scsi cdrom.

I just don't understand how blu-rays played fine before, but don't know. Using multiple software packages, it leads me to think that the hardware is the issue? But when I insert a blu-ray, the drive in My Computer shows the correct info. ie:
BD-ROM Drive (E Prometheus
0 bytes free of 44.4 GB

Is this a known issue? Or am I just overlooking something?

 

There may be a software that is interfering with the functionality. Try rolling back to a time before you installed all those softwares and use the one that the machine came with (or uninstall all of them and install the one you received with the machine). Once that's done run the patch that allows you to view BD. It's on the updates section of PowerDVD.

You can also try deleting the upper and lower filters. Here is how.

 

Thank you for the reply. Here's what I've been able to do. First I tried the Upper and Lower filters. I've messed with regedit before so I understood how it worked. I did not have an entry for Upper, but I did have Lower. And I took care of it as the instructions stated. This had no effect. I also uninstalled all of the blu ray software. And the reinstalled PowerDVD 9 from my dell cd. I tested it and it did in fact play a dvd fine. I checked for updates and was prompted to download and install "PDVD12_WebUpdate_Upgrade_TR130924-046". I did so and am back to exactly where I was before. Opening Powerdvd then inserting a bluray, only shows folder in the powerdvd window. Inserting the blu-ray then right clicking the drive and opening with powerdvd gives me a black screen for a few seconds, then the error report prompt.

 

Ok so, I ended up doing a complete reinstall of windows on my laptop. And blu-ray movies still do not play. Funnily enough, I'm on my desktop PC now (also an alienware) and it won't play a Blu-Ray either it seems. Powerdvd crashes immediately just like on my laptop.:\ I give up.