DVD-RAM read issues?

[PsychoticX]

My friend has a DVD-RAM drive that just stopped working. It was working fine the other day and then he reformatted (with a sp2 disc). He even ran his first dvd backup cd and installed some of his backup files. All of a sudden the drive stops reading dvds and cds completely. When a disc is inserted the drive acts as if there is an unwritable blank disc inserted. Hes tried reformatting using the same sp2 xp disc but the problem remains. Ive seen this problem before and when I reformatted it worked fine (however this was on a laptop with company-made restore software). I doubt its a dead drive because normally when the drive is dead it at least makes an attempt to read the disc, before locking up windows of course. All of his current settings are correct as well. I hate to say it but im stumped... any ideas?

 

[amdskip]

Sounds like a dead drive to me. I would try testing the drive in another computer.