DVD's not being read...

[Baby Boomer]

Straight to the problem;

It seems my DVD Drive has stopped reading DVD's. Every time I insert a game (So far I have tried Assassin's Creed, Company of Heroes and FIFA 08) the green light flashes and the PC makes noises which seems like its working.

Much like when its loading something (This happens for 2 seconds) and then sioence, and then the loading sound again, and it continues in a cycle.

The disk is spinning, I can confirm that. I found out all my drivers for my PC are System Drivers and I have no idea how to update that stuff. I have cleaned the drive with a Lens Cleaner, tried stuff from Microsoft.

So how can I fix it!? Its not the disk and I think its the drive. I want to play Assassin's Creed and it seems this problem poses a end (Yep, forever, eternally, whatever word for on and on) to my PC Gaming years.

And no, I can't replace it as my budget can't afford it and the PC is under lease so the idea of a replacement of the drive is incapable.

Any help will be appreicated!

[Husar]

And no, I can't replace it as my budget can't afford it and the PC is under lease so the idea of a replacement of the drive is incapable.

If it's a "mechanical" failure of the drive I would guess you have a problem then. How a new DVD drive can be under your budget is a mystery to me though, I paid 12EUR for mine.
apart from that I don't see why however you leased the PC from would want it back with a malfunctioning DVD drive, contact her/him/them and offer to put a new one in.
If you have any StarForce games on the system you might want to get rid of that as well, it can cause such drive failures I heard, not that getting rid of that would fix the drive but will perhaps make the next one live longer.

If it's a software problem, then I have no idea, does it read the discs at all or is it just the autostart that isn't working?

[Baby Boomer]

I can't find any cheap new drives, they all seem to be in the hundred's range, and the lease is from one of those retail giants, and they'll probably re sell it when the lease is over.

My driver for the DVD Drive is a System Driver; is there any way to update these? THe PC is five years old now.

If it helps, all games but Assassain's Creed work now (FIFA works on the second go and the rest run smoothly) I had Call of Duty 4 out but it had the same problem, and I returned it for AC which has the same problem. Is it something to do with the newer games perhaps?

[Whacker]

I've also had the same situation happen to me on a number of instances, and I can specifically recall two causes.

The first was that older games stopped working, and it was because I had games installed which used the Securom "protection" mechanism. If you have M2TW expansion or any other number of newer games installed, odds are you have Securom installed. It's known to conflict with other protection schemes, like Safedisc.

The other problem was caused by Starforce. Not only did that eat one of my optical drives, but it caused me numerous headaches with having other CDs and DVDs I owned not being read right. Removing that fixed all those problems instantly.

As for your drivers, them being system drivers isn't a problem, and given you how describe the issue I doubt it's your hardware's fault. It sounds like a classic case of game copy mechanisms conflicting with others. Of course it could be something else, maybe a virus or your hardware is honestly going bad, but that's not my first guess.

[Baby Boomer]

Is there any possible way to remove Starforce or Securom?

I don't have M2TW Kingdoms installed, as that had the exact same problem COD and AC are having. Not a virus as I run virus and spyware checker daily. Most games seem to be working except the newer ones, so I suspect you're right and I've installed something.

As I said, how can I remove these Anti - Piracy things and is there a list of games they're applied to?

[Caius]

Is there any possible way to remove Starforce or Securom?

You will have to find elsewhere, I think that, if we enter on how to remove piracy, we will enter in warez issues which arent allowed in the org, as piracy is.

[Whacker]

Hi Caius, talk of cracking games would fall under the warez category, cleaning this garbage off of your system isn't and should be fine to discuss.

To remove Starforce: http://www.glop.org/starforce/

To remove Securom: http://forums.tweakguides.com/showthread.php?t=4027 is a fairly good guide