2 DVDs have stopped working

[Guest]

Hi guys,

I have two DVDs which are no longer being recognised by my Dell Inspiron
5100 laptop. When I insert either of the Discs, the light on the DVD player
flashes for a few seconds and then stops. In Windows Explorer it tells me
there is nothing currently in the drive, and If I go into a DVD Program (I've
tried both Intervideo WinDVD and PowerDVD) it tells me there is no DVD in the
DVD drive. I think this is a Windows problem, and not a Hardware
problem/third party software problem because Other DVDs (of the same and
different region and PAL type) still work on my system, It's just two which
have stopped working. I have DVDIdle Pro V.505 installed on my computer as I
have run out of region changes and it is set to a different region than this
DVD. I'm running WindowsXP Service Pack 2. I cant think of any software that
I have installed since the Discs have stopped working (They werent working
even before I installed SP2). Any help would be appreciated because I have
nowhere else I can play these discs!!

Cheers,
Daniel

 

[David Candy]

Wash em with soap.

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

If other similar DVDs work while these two do not, it seem obvious the
problem is with the DVDs.

 

[Guest]

Are you being serious? If so, what sort of soap and in what way?

 

[Guest]

Perhaps, but I have tried both of them on a stand alone DVD Player and they
ran (although in black and white and choppy because it is a DVD player from
the wrong region...)

 

[David Candy]

Any soap or detergent (but not caustic cleaners). Just get human grease off them. Wash your hands with the CD in between.

 

[David Candy]

Warm not hot water

 

[Guest]

Are you being serious? If so, what sort of soap and in what way?

I wash problem DVD's with soap to remove whatever, it has sofar always worked.
Warm water and a liquid soap, dry litely fron the center out NOT in a circle,
or just let it air dry.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your help...I did this, but still not working...any other ideas??

 

[Herb Fritatta]

Are you being serious? If so, what sort of soap and in what way?

:

Dishwashing liquid detergents work well for this, because they're
relatively mild and are great at removing grease from almost anything.
Back in the day a coworker spilled coffee on a 5.25" floppy that had
important files on it. He thought he was screwed, but I carefully slit
open the outer shell of the disk, removed the magnetic medium and washed
it in warm water and dishwashing liquid. I put the magnetic disk in a
new case (one from which I had removed the disk), carefully taped it
shut, and bingo--the disk was readable, at least long enough to copy the
data off of it.

 

[frodo]

I think you already know the problem, it's a region issue.