My Vista laptop has stopped playing Dvds! Help!

[Joey-Flower]

hi,

Ok, i've had my toshiba laptop since June 08, and for the first four months or so it was fine and played dvds and cds no problem, then suddenly it stopped! Everytime I put in a dvd WMP will open automatically, the dvd chapter titles will show up on the playlist panel on the right, it will look like it has recognised it, then it will freeze and the error message 'Windows media player has encountered a problem and will have to close'. Every time. And it's not just WMP, Ive tried all the other dvd player software including the Toshiba program and Windvd, they all get the same message.

Is it something that has happened during an update? My dad's a school computer technician but hasn't found the problem and other than send the laptop and risk losing everything on it and not having it for a month, I don't know what else to do!

However, CDs still work fine in it by the way. Also, I copied a video file from a friend and it won't play that, only the sound! I don't know if that is at all linked either...
It's really irritating!

Please help, thanks!

Jo xxx