Quoting Fingerlakes Dave:
Quote:
No ID read. Just for yuks, tried a totally different title. No ID read.
I really am baffled. 
Do I understand this correctly - that the problem has widened to include other previously ID-able discs?
Yet the laptop system you mentioned reads these same discs OK?
If so, my opinion now leans toward some form of infection by copy protection malware... tho fairly rare.
Do you have autorun enabled? If so, this could be a possibility.
You may recall a few years ago Sony Ent. got into quite a bit of trouble by setting up a stealth install of malware on some of their CDs wich, among other things, interfered with how the discs were read on a PC.
More recently, all DVDs that were produced by Geneon Entertainment in 2007 will silently install Macrovision 's "Active Software Protection" driver - the exact nature of which isn't very clear, nor is it's removal. But it's reportedly a very low level driver that intercept calls to the DVDROM and blocks access to certain types of software - specifically which is also not clear.
How commonly used this sort of thing is I don't know... precious little information is about.
Also not clear is how detectable these sort of things are... whether it would disguise itself as another process by name, or can cloak itself entirely from Process Explorer. (Mark Russinovich, the original author of Process Explorer, I recall had to go through quite some trouble to identify the original Sony rootkit.) Right now I don't have the available hardware or time to do proper testing, though I could provide the Geneon disc binaries if someone else wants to experiment.
Not to be all humbug, but if you have a spare HDD for the system in question, a complete clean OS install might be the next step of testing... to rule out any software contamination.
If the problem clears, then there's your answer (tho not very specific.)
If not, then back to square one... and a lot of time wasted.
