Having problems playing DVDs suddenly

[Muse]

I never had a problem before with my Pioneer 106s slot loading DVD playing drive but tonight I can't watch movies. I tried playing a music CD and it seems OK for that. I was watching a new movie and it errored. I tried to play it again and it errored at the exact same spot. The message is that the disc may be dirty or scratched:


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DVD Error
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Error Code: 89020003
The DVD disc might have been damaged so as to inhibit playback operation.

Close
Detailed

If you hit "Detailed" it says: Please clean the surface of the disc if possible. If it has been scratched, it might not be readable.

The disc looks fine, so I played a few other DVDs (some known good) and also got errors. Some won't play at all. Generally I get this error when I first insert the disc:

Program Error
Autoplay.exe has generated errors and will be closed by Windows. You will need to restart the program.
An error log is being created.

OK
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What does it mean when it says an error log is being created? Where do you look for the error log?

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I rebooted, same problem. I generally use Power DVD 3.0. I tried playing a known good DVD movie with NVDVD that came with my video card. It at least plays, but every few seconds the scenes just skip forward to the middle of another scene!!! This is the Baby Rigzilla computer in my sig. Any ideas? Thanks!

 

[Muse]

I decided that the likely next step was to remove the drive and put it in my other machine, also Windows 2000 SP3. It appears to work OK in that other machine! So, I put it back in the original machine where it's mapped to P: (for Pioneer). I had rebooted the machine to make sure it would "forget" the drive and force Win2000 to reassess its presence. The mapping to P: persists, which actually doesn't please me. Worse, it's still thinking that discs are dirty or scratched. What's up and what's the logical next thing to do. I did Ghost my OS partition a couple weeks ago so I could restore that (after backing up a few things in my \Documents and Settings). Thanks for any help.

 

[Muse]

I tried uninstalling the drive in Device Manager and rebooted. I found that the drive is still mapped to P: but don't know if that would be a factor. If all else fails I will Ghost back my Windows 2000 from a couple weeks ago but I want to exhaust other possibilities, obviously.

Come on, doesn't anyone have any good ideas?

 

[Muse]

bump

 

[JayBone]

Try cleaning the DVD?

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: JayBone
Try cleaning the DVD?

No, no. There's nothing wrong with the DVD. I tried playing several other DVD's that never had a problem in this drive and they won't play either. Usually it never gets into the movie. I just get the message that it's probably either scratched or dirty but it has to be something else. I put the DVD drive in my other machine and it seemed OK, but I didn't play too much of the movie and I did that for two DVDs. I think the next step is to put it in the other machine again and make sure it's really OK in there.

I ghosted back from two weeks ago the OS partition but the problem persisted. My best guess now is that the lens is dirty or something. I'm tempted to open up the drive and blast it with compressed gas, but I've never done anything like that and am hesitant to try that. I couldn't rip a movie with Smartripper either.

 

[VicodiN]

You try reinstalling your codec proggie?, IE winDVD, PowerDVD etc... Mine's gotten currupted a few time for some reason.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: VicodiN
You try reinstalling your codec proggie?, IE winDVD, PowerDVD etc... Mine's gotten currupted a few time for some reason.

It seems unlikely because both PowerDVD and NVDVD are not working, but I will uninstall PowerDVD and reinstall and see what happens. Thanks.