New Dell, old DVD player won't work

Try installing VLC www.videolan.org and see if the drive works.  If it works, at least you will know the drive works, and you can focus on the software.

Thanks Callandor. The drive worked just fine before I pulled it from the older machine last week. By process of elimination can I assume I need to update the software? WinDVD v.6 is $70.00 and v.5 is $11.00. Can you suggest software?

No, you really want to be sure, and VLC is free.  WinDVD is good, though I suspect v1.4 is pretty old by now and v5 would be a cheap upgrade for you.

I have about 100 CD's of various version of Cyberlink PowerDVD sitting here.  One comes with every drive, and we usually don't even use them.

Forgetting WATCHING DVDs for the moment, you can find out if this is a hardware problem by simply trying to open the DVD as a disk drive in "My Computer".  You shoud see the folders and files, and you should be able to copy them (as data files).  If you can do that (and it should be possible even for a "video" DVD), the drive hardware is working.  My guess is that the problem is that the sofware is too old.  You should be able to find a copy of WinDVD or PowerDVD on E-Bay for $5 or so.  The shipping will probably be more than the actual item.

Well, it seems the software was definitely the problem. I wasn't able to find what you were suggesting at videolan. What does VLC stand for? Were you suggesting their site has a link to test my player? In spite of what I am about to say, I am still interested in persuing the videolan connection with you for future reference. Anyway, I downloaded the latest trial version of WinDVD v.6 and voila! - it works. I await your response about videolan but for now at least I am up and running - thank you.

Hey Callandor,

How very cool! VCL works like a champ. Thank you. Have a great one! Your help is most appreciated.