Strange DVD writer problem with Dell Studio 15s

Well I am a happy Studio 15 customer since Jan this year. Me and friend bought the exact same studio only differing in color within a span of 15 days. Yesterday, while I was at his place and we were copying some *cough* personal data from a DVD one of the DVDs was not readable on his lappy. So I tried it on mine. It wasn't readable on mine as well. And after that none of the DVDs we tried were readable on both of our lappys. We even tried our only original Windows Vista DVD which came with our lappys. They too weren't readable!

How is it possible that a DVD made both of our DVD writers go crazy? Now, the drive is detected but any media inserted in it just goes unnoticed! The CD/DVD tries to spin for sometime but no use!


Since the lappys are in warranty it's not something to worry about. We called up the customer care and both of our drives are going to be replaced now. But I still don't understand what a DVD can 'exactly' do in this case.

Just note, the DVD had many scratches on it but heck so what!? ANY light on this would be just great. Thanks in advance!

Have you a CD/DVD Cleaning Disc already? Do that, prolly the 'dvd' had dust on it which has settled on you dvd rom lens.

No actually I don have a CD/DVD cleaning disc. I thought of buying one but what the heck, if I can get the drive itself replaced

I will give this a try however. A friend of mine has a lens cleaner DVD. Thanks for the help!

I think some dust has fallen on the lens of the DVD drive.