dvd burner mis-behaving, very odd!!

[top_score]

My dvd drive is acting very odd. (TSST corp CD/DVDW SN-S082D)

It hardly recognises any of my "Original" (ie bought from the shop) legit DVD's, but lets me play my backup copies. When I put a dvd in the drive it hunts round like crazy for maybe a minute, then gives up, showing there is no dvd in the drive. If on occasion it will play the movie (sometimes on backup also) there is major slowdown on the movie, and the actors all talk like they got stutters.

It will let my install and play all games on dvd, original and backup.
-
I use VLC, and Window media player to watch movies, I get the same problem no mater what I use.

I cant burn any dvd's, I have usually use DeepBurner pro (free version), and obtained a version of Nero7 to see if that would work, but it didnt (cant remember exact error message, but something to do with power) so got rid of the bloated Nero.

I also use Deamon tools and YASU.

As my hard drive is partioned I stuck XP on a partition of its own, its a clean install with just all the windows updates and DeepBurner and VLC on it, the dvd drive work perfect 100% of the time.

So now I am stuck dual booting XP(for gaming etc) and XP(for burning and watching movies)

Anybody any ideas, as all my google research suggests my drive is broken, or i need latest drivers/firmware. (which clearly isnt the case)

I think maybe some games copy protection system or Deamon tools is screwing windows up.

Any help or advice will be greatfully accepted.

PS

Sorry this post is so long, but hopefully have included all pertinant information.

[Joe Forster/STA]

Do a DVD read speed test with e.g. DVDInfoPro.