Creative PC-DVD 8x -- won't read DVD

Creative tech support = horrid.

Unfortunately, they provided no help to me. All of my independent troubleshooting was useless.

Here's the deal,

Windows 98 (and redhat 7.3 for that matter)
acer 8x4x32 cdrw (slave, I believe)
Creative PC-DVD 8x (primary, problem drive)

The drive, when I first purchased this computer, worked flawlessly. I don't have a decoder card installed, nor did I ever. On my third or fourth reformat the drive ceased to play DVDs properly. It does however play CD,CDR,CDRWs without hesitation.

Thus far, I have tried:

- installing PowerDVD
- installing new drivers, which failed because creative.com has no drivers for the 8x dvd player. Only drivers for the hardware decoder card.
- using different DVDs in the drive
- finding the original disc that came with the drive, that I lost.
- twiddling my thumbs

Whenever I attempt to play a DVD, it seems as if it is about to start to play, then halts.

I can not view DVD's in windows explorer. Though I can view other media on that drive in windows explorer.

All I can think of now is that it's a hardware problem with the drive.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Try twiddling your thumbs again for about 20 seconds while simultaneously cursing the computer under your breath.

If that doesn't work, I'd set the DVD up as master without a slave device attached and see if it still does the same thing.

Ok, as previously said try the drive on its lonesome and see if any problems occur,

also if the drive has been "region" hacked or region set, you may find that being your problem.

If this is the case, im not sure how to reset the region.

<a href="http://www.cdgrab.hu/firmware.html" target="_blank">try here</a>

<a href="http://www.firmware.fr.st/" target="_blank">and here!</a> for unlock tools and firmware updates.

DISCLAIMER! - I assume no responsibility for any of these updates... :D