Your DVD laser has probably died.. This is pretty common. These drives
are cheap and easy to replace.
The drive letter change suggests there was a partition on your C drive
that is no longer there. These partitions are common on many PCs.
If you have a Phillips screwdriver and a little patience we can help
you with this.
There is an excellent guide here:
http://freepctech.com/pc/001/installing_ide_devices.shtml

On Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 4:03 PM, Joyce E<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I used to be able to view a movie or other video DVD on my PC, running
> Windows XP SP 2.  That was before the hard drive crashed and I had to take
> this computer to the shop for a new one.  For some reason, the CD drive came
> back with the assigned letter "D" where it was "E" before, and I can't open
> anything other than a data DVD or CD any more.   The CD/DVD drive will not
> recognize a blank DVD either, although I can write a data file to a CD.
>  Windows Media Player doesn't recognize anything at all other than a data
> file in the drive.
>
> I've downloaded three different varieties of DVD software:  Easy DVD 2 from
> Downloads.com;  CDVD from the same source; and the Free DVD/Video Player
> from Cliprex.com.  (That last one triggered a virus alert.)  Is there
> anything else I can try, short of simply buying a new computer?  TIA!
>
> Joyce in SE Ohio

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