I’ve been having a couple of problems lately with my optical drive.  Whenever I try to watch a DVD, WinDVD locks up just as it’s about to play video.  It gets the title of the disc, and I can use Explorer to actually look at the files on the disc, I just can’t play the movie.  At first, I thought it might be a WinDVD problem, but I’ve downloaded some other DVD-playing programs, and they behave the same way…  They see the disc, they recognize it, they get enough informatin to get a title, and then when they actually would start playing video, they lock up.

A friend suggested that it might be that the drive is for some reason not able to deliver the data quickly enough, and that lead me to think of the other problem I’ve been having with the drive…

I can only burn at up to 8X speeds.  Roxio (I had a copy and installed it) simply doesn’t recognize any faster speed as an option.

Are these problems related?  Anyone have any ideas what might be wrong, and how I could fix it?

Any help at all is appreciated.

No ideas?

Okay, then…  Slightly different question.  If I call Sony support, what’s their reaction going to be like when they find out I’ve changed the operating system (from XP Home to XP Pro)?

I imagine I shouldn’t volunteer the information unless I absolutely need to, but I’m curious what other folks’ experiences have been.

Well I don’t know what sony are like, but I know when I upgraded my brother’s Dell laptop from ME to XP a few years ago I was having trouble finding some of the drivers etc and I emailed them and they sent me back a very short, slighty abrupt email saying that they would only support the original installed OS and any deviation from that was my problem…. Bit harsh as I’d seen the same laptop on their website with XP already installed so I knew they had the drivers :x

I know from experience that the second Sony finds out that your’re running non-standard, they’ll say they can’t help you.

I know Dell allows you to buy the OS from them…then they will support the newer OS.

Erik

I have actually called up Sony Singapore before I purchase my TR and the answer given to me was that they will not support any software related issues. However, they will still “entertain” any hardware faults as long as the hardware is under warranty.

In Singapore, there’s only 1 model of TR and that’s running XP Home.  :cry:

Worst-case scenario, I’ll restore from my stack of CDs, see if the problem still exists, and if it does, I can call Sony then.

Of course if restoring from those CDs fixes the problem, I’m going to be extremely frustrated.