Problem With Dvd Drive

Louise1521

I've been posting on the ebay board reference a laptop that we sold a couple of weeks ago. After having the goods for a week, the buyer stated that it doesn't play DVD's/music. When asked if it played software, she became abusive. She's apparently taken it to PC World who have told her that it needs a new drive and that there is no way it could have been damaged in transit. We know it was in perfect working order when it left here, as my husband reinstalled windows etc on it, so that it was back to factory settings. We are wondering if the software to play DVD's/CD's has been installed correctly. If the problem isn't that could the drive have been damaged in transit? It's obviously not the most likely part to go first. It's just annoying as it was working.

Alfie_E

A distinction needs to be made between audio CDs and video DVDs. Audio CDs should just play in any sort of media play in Windows – Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, etc. For video DVDs, Windows doesn’t come with the necessary software to play them. Computers and drives are often provided with software like Roxio’s PowerDVD or Nero’s ShowTime. Windows Media Player can also make use of the software to display DVDs within Media Player.

DVD drives have a hardware regional setting. You can only change it a limited number of times. If your buyer changed it, so that it wasn’t set to region two, on the final time it could be changed, that would cause a problem. Region two is the region needed to play normal commercial UK video DVDs.

If the discs are writeable discs recorded on a different drive, the laptop drive could have problems reading them. Not really a problem with CDs, more of a problem with DVDs. This comes down to the fact that there are two standards for recordable DVDs and, even for a single standard, different discs have slightly different optical properties. This can cause problems for older drives.

Yes, it could have got damaged in transit. However, like you, I’d be very suspicious of the fact that the buyer got abusive when asked if it played any discs at all. If it plays some discs, it’s highly unlikely that it’s physically damaged.

Louise1521

Thanks Alfi for the reply. I also find it odd that PC World could insist that it couldn't have been damaged in transit. Oh well, the battle goes on.