Compaq Evo N610c w/skippy DVD-ROM GDR8081N

I played some Torchwood and Dr. Who DVD's that a UK friend copied for me because we don't get BBC where I am (and because my dad is an emotionally abusive bastard and screams at me and polices my bank accounts even more closely for months if I buy even one book for recreation, let alone a season of TV). ANYway...the first seasons of TW kept stopping for long periods of time and then starting up again, sometimes skipping a lot of video, and the skipping got worse toward the end of each DVD. In fact, I never got to see the last 5-10 minutes of the last episodes on each DVD. The Who DVD's didn't skip at all, and my friend said it was because he had gotten better copying software.

Now, though, I can't get any CD videos or even store-bought DVD's to play without skipping on my drive--disks that had worked fine in the past.
:cry
Just today when I tried to play a store-bought DVD, the video was fine, but the sound couldn't keep up. That gave me a little hope that this issue could be fixed--that the drive's "not dead, yet"! (Monty Python fan, here.)
:confused
I have read online that there have been problems with this particular DVD-ROM and XP-Pro, so I'd like to give reloading the driver a shot. I went to the Compaq (now HP) site, and they say no drivers are available and that I have to contact my local representative. Well, since my computer guy got this offline for $300...I'm thinking not.

Help, please?

Here's as much info as I could get from Everest about the drive itself:
Compaq CD/DVD-ROM GDR8081N, Reading Speeds DVD 8x/CD 24x, Serial: 217B-0418

According to device manager, it's working properly, and it can't locate a driver update. *sigh*

The serial number didn't get me anywhere on the Compaq/HP site, either. Their site is about as user friendly as--well, anything I say to you is probably going to sound stupid because you're a computer expert. *smacks self*

Thank you for any assistance! Sorry for any wandering in my message. I try not to, but...I have Asperger syndrome and it tends to happen even when I'm trying not to.

Thanks again. Please, let me know if you need anything else. I did my best to follow the directions in the "To Everyone Seeking Driver Help" sticky. I hope I didn't miss anything!

Sincerely,

 

Thanks, hon. Now, I'm having trouble with my computer recognizing the drive at all, so severely that every time I click on My Computer, I get a "Not Responding" message for the window and my desktop completely reloads itself once the My Computer window finally closes.

Now, I should mention that when I inserted a flash drive to transfer some work-related files from the laptop to my desktop, the laptop did a memory dump and restarted itself. This issue with the DVD-ROM and My Computer window developed after that. I ran CHKDSK and it only opened the DOS window (grrrr) but it found 1 *.tmp file during the 2nd stage. It only ran through 3 stages. I couldn't find the scandisk thing that runs at startup, but I really want to do that. I've run SAS, MBAM, and Avast, and they found nothing.

*pulls hair out*

Ahem. *regains composure* Any ideas?

I appreciate any help. I did download the new VistaCodecs, as I followed the link you gave and the download site showed a July 2009 version. I'm going to install that and see if it helps. If it does, I'll let you know. If it doesn't, I'll leave this reply as is. (I'm installing it and trying it as soon as I post this.)

 

Well, it didn't solve the problem with the disk I had in the drive...but once I took the disk out, everything went back to normal with my laptop. The disk is a DVD-R that I made recording 2 broadcast Buffy episodes from a VHS tape. The DVD-R plays in a regular DVD player, but maybe the laptop's can't handle it. Damn. That means I have to take the laptop off my lap, get up, and change the DVD every time the episodes are done (and some of the DVD's have 2 eps out of order because that's the way the tapes were). I'm using the episodes for research for writing fanfic, etc. I don't watch all of them at once, but I usually watch more than 1...especially if I remember wrong which episode had the stuff I needed to see.

Anyway, thanks for the info on what might help and what the reason might be. It seems the latter is true. :'(

Thanks, hon.