DVD Playback issues

I have a dv8000t that I upgraded to Vista Ultimate. Ever since then (I think that's when it started), I've had issues with my CD/DVD burner. Often it fails to detect CDs or DVDs that I've inserted. They neither play nor show up in My Computer (that is, the drive is present, but it thinks it has no media). Sometimes if I eject and then close the drive several times in a row, that helps, but often the eject button stops working and I have to put a paper clip in the little hole. Sometimes once I get a movie playing, I can watch through the whole thing. Other times, the movie will quit in the middle as if the movie has been ejected. A couple of times the drive has phyisically ejected itself, either in the middle of a movie or while I'm doing nothing at all. I would think this is a hardware issue, but I have a friend with an Acer who seems to be having the same problem. So I'm wondering if this Vista related. I thought I'd see if anyone else has the same problems before I have to hassle HP tech support. Thanks!

 

I've done a lot of reading around here and I haven't seen any issues like this caused by Vista. I've burned many DVD disks on my laptop and I have yet to have any issues with it at all on both XP and Vista platforms. To me it sounds like a bad drive or possibly corrupted drivers. You could try deleting the device in the device manager and then let Vista reinstall the driver, that might clear it up, or as a last resort send it in to HP for repair/replacement. If you do send it in for repair make sure to take some pictures of the laptop before you send it in just in case they mangle it like some of the other repairs they have made in the past. Also be sure to include a note with the laptop describing the all the problems in detail.

-Reby