Combo drive won't read DVDs

[londonweb]

I have been reading both data and video dvds for the past week on the ibook G3 I just bought off ebay, and all of sudden this morning it won't read a DVD at all. Cds still work fine, but a dvd just makes a sort of faint scratchy noise and then gets spat out after about 5 seconds. What on earth is going on??

It's an iBook g3 800mhz with a cd-rw/dvd-rom combo drive. A cd doesn't make any odd noises whatsoever and reads fine. I've checked under OS 9.2 and the situation is the same.

Any help very much appreciated!

 

[mad jew]

How many different DVDs have you tried because it sounds superficially like a scratched disk problem.

 

[londonweb]

I've tried two different video dvds and two different data dvds, two of which worked fine previously- they don't appear to be scratched. I've also just checked and when you spin a cd or a dvd in the tray manually (as the mac support site suggested to do), it spins freely with no play or scratching noises...Cds also appear to be burning fine

 

[topgunn]

Are they all DVD-R's that someone has burned or are they "real" DVD movies?

 

[londonweb]

Are they all DVD-R's that someone has burned or are they "real" DVD movies?

The data ones are ones that have been burned on a powerbook by a colleague of mine (they are memorex branded DVD-R). I have also tried a few video dvds from my collection (all of them 'real' shop-bought) and they don't work either.