dvd burned my computer

I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop with Windows Vista.
Yesterday I started playing a rented DVD movie in Windows media center. It froze part of the way through. I kept on trying to eject it and re-insert it. It didn't play. Windows media center froze up so I restarted the computer. My laptop came up with the display squished to the left half of the screen.
I fixed that by right-clicking on the display, changing the font size, and restarting the computer. The display came back full size. Then I changed the font size back, restarted again, display is OK.

Except that now I can't play DVD's or CD's. When I try, the DVD reader sounds like it's trying - the fan comes on, the DVD is turning. But it doesn't start to play.

In the "Computer" window, all I see is the C drive. I don't have a D drive, which I think should be the DVD drive and should be there?
Also in "Device Manager", there's nothing that looks like a DVD/CD drive.
So what can I do?
DVD from hell!

You need to find a bootable cd or dvd and test, the rental disk may have broken the drive.


I always clean dirty disks before putting them in any player.

You need to find a bootable cd or dvd and test, the rental disk may have broken the drive.

Thanks! I found a "recovery and applications/drivers" CD that I think I got when I bought the PC. It was for an earlier version of Wind. but I downloaded the DVD driver and it now works again
Laura

Edited by dominose, 08 August 2009 - 02:23 PM.

If the drive disappeared from My Computer and a factory reinstall disk(like one that comes with your computer) will not boot the computer during startup then the drive is broken, like dead, fat lady sang, kaput etc.

A shop technician will do these tests