The drive plays DVDs and can read doc files, but

The actual dvd were also burned somewhere, did you burn your stuff correctly, try playing those cd on another computer.
CLEAN, WASH YOUR DVDs CAREFULLY DON'T DESTROY THEM.
It doesn't look like your dvd drive is faulty.
Please feel free to ask me for further information.

lost of things could be happening ,depending on optical drive manufacturer,file type,plus or minus dvd/cd blank disk and burning software and how you are burning the media,all can cause malfunctions,but if playing a disc causes blue screen of death,then i would first uninstall display adapter driver on graphics card,and restart,when computer finds new hardware,click cancel,go to dell support and get newest driver,and software,reinstall..some optical drives like minus discs,some like plus discs,depending on the drive,if its a combo drive and will read and write both plus and minus discs,then the problem is how you are burning them,or the laser is dirty or drive is malfunctioning.if you arent allready using nero burning software,then i would reccomend it,i have been doing this a long time,had my days of problems,,not anymore,i dont work for nero nor am i paid by them to say this, but i am a computer repair tech with 25+years experience,save yourself hours of pain and wasted blank discs,and purchase it,user friendly ,easy to use ,and advanced drive speed tools ,allow max preformance on any computer,read instructions ,discs must be burned with correct file type for device that plays them back ,disc at once or track at once settings ,matter,also using the slowest burning speed,creates a higher quality disc,but takes longer,post comments if you have more questions ,aloha from maui todd0708

You have three options.
1: Use the built-in burning tool of your drive. Put in a blank DVD, and start dragging files onto it. Right click on the DVD and press "finalize" when done.

2: Download the program "Nero Burning Rom" and follow its instructions. The upside of this, is that it offers burning modes that will let you play some video files on a regular DVD player.
Note: The program costs money, but the free trial lasts long enough to see if you like it.
http://www.nero.com/enu/index.html

3: Use CD Burner XP (if works with DVDs too). It is free and has a TON of options, but is a little hard to use for beginners. I'd recommend reading the help file.
http://cdburnerxp.se/

Hi,

i think you,ve hit the nail-on-the-head.
The laser has to power up highrer to write a DVD, or ocassionally have a dual laser. 1 for read/write CD. And 1 For Read/Write DVD.
Certain cd roms, only use CD- media. it,s probably worth checking which media is supported by the drive.
Also check the drives aren,t conflicting, on the same ide channel, sometimes swapping channels, ide primary/secondary can help, or swiitching Master/Slave/cable select jumpers on the drives Themselves.

Mike @ Compurepair.

A blank disc is RAW until something is burn to it the burning program will format it to cdfs.

If you have the sony CD RW DVD ROM then you can't burn the data in a blank DVD.

Because your Configuration is :
Read : CD / DVD
Write : CD

This means you have a combo drive. But to burn a DVD you should have DVD RW.

CD-RW drives can only read all CD-rom and CD-RW formats and read DVD formats but cannot write to a DVD, if you want to write a DVDs you need to buy a DVD-RW burner which can burn all CD-formats

Do you mean DVD movies wont play? If so you need to install DVD software. Use Google to search for some or buy some e.g. PowerDVD.

sounds exactly like my old dead drive. if it cant boot from a cd its likely a bad drive

ITs a dvd rom drive. It will not burn blank dvds
in order to burn, it has to cd-r/cd-rw/dvd-r/dvd-rw. If a drive cannot write to a blank disc, it will eject it. Rom drives read only (Read Only Memory), Combo drives- burn cd's only read dvd's, and super drives both read and write to cds and dvds.