This post is a last resort for me. I've read dozens of forums with people with similar problems but things that have worked for them haven't for me.

I recently purchased a LG GGC-H20L HD-DVD/Blu-ray combo drive and have yet to be able to play anything on blu-ray (haven't tried HD-DVD as I don't own any). At first, I thought the drive wasn't reading the disk because when it was inserted, the name of the physical drive changed to 'CD-Drive' and it was reading as if it were empty & there was no way to access it. The only program that recognized it was AnyDVD-HD which was a bit of a relief, but still brought me no joy. I solved this problem by installing the UDF 2.5 driver, and thought perhaps that now PowerDVD will recognize the disc and play it.

At first, PDVD 7.3 Ultra stated that it needed to be updated and required a patch download. Wow, perhaps I was getting somewhere. So I downloaded a 98mb patch (CyberLink_PowerDVD_Ultra.exe) and installed, but was again promted to download another patch when attemping to play the blu-ray disc (AvP 2). So yet again I downloaded another patch (CyberLink.4102_Ultra_DVD080411-03.exe - 71.1mb) but no joy. It attempted to load for about 5-7 seconds but came up with an internal error when accessing the disc. At this point, I'll add that DVD's etc, play perfectly fine. I'll also add that I've tried to completely uninstall PDVD several times, and install just the latest patch for 7.3 Ultra but same bs.

So I attempted to use the bundled software that came with the drive, uninstalled PDVD 7.3 Ultra (Version 7.3.4102.0), and installed that and tried to load. Again, it required another 102mb 'patch', and so I installed but it simply won't recognize the disc, stating 'Please make sure disc drive is closed and disc is inserted properly', or something similar. I updated the firmware of the drive to 1.3, but nothing changed.

Cyberlink BD Advisor (v 2.0) doesn't like my graphic card drivers (on HD4870x2, cat v8.11), and says that my monitor (Viewsonic VA2226w connected via DVI) isn't HDCP-compliant, which is wrong. I exceed the recommended requirements for blu-ray playback, but still I am unable.

As a test, I ripped AvP2 to the hard-drive with AnyDVD-HD and made an iso of the directory. Mounted it and tried to get PDVD to load that, but it still comes up with an internal error. AnyDVD-HD doesn't seem to have any impact in this because it still happens if it is running in the background or not.

Things become a bit more complicated when Coral WinDVD 9 won't play the discs either. It say's 'loading' then after 4-5 seconds says 'stop', and does nothing. Does it for both the real disc and the mounted image.

As I stated at the top, posting this on a forum is a last resort for me. I've spent over 15 hours on this and I really don't consider myself a idiot PC user. I've considered doing other options, such as using different catalyst drivers or changing the monitor's connection to VGA but that shouldn't matter as AnyDVD-HD is meant to remove that HDCP requirement. Any suggestions will be very appreciated.

PC Specs:

WinXP Pro
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 3.8ghz
2GB Ram
Gigabyte GA-X48-DQ6 MB
ATI Radeon HD4870X2 catalyst 8.11 drivers
2 x 500GB Hdd's (RAID 0)
ViewSonic VA2226w LCD
LG GGC-H20L HD-DVD/Blu-ray combo drive

(As a side note, I have been able to play the ripped .m2ts files in PDVD no problems if I open them as media files. Not sure if that is relevant or not)

It is clear to me you have done your homework. I really dont want to make this opinion because its just naturally not something I do, but im going to be quite honest. I have purchased LG devices in the past, those being dvd burners, blue rays. I have yet had an LG product work right for me. With going through all the right steps as far as updating the firmwares, checking software, ect ect it seems like their would have been a resolution to the non working device. After finally giving up i wrote LG a nice letter stating my experience with all the products i have purchased through them. Never got anything back by the way. I am sticking with lite-on products until otherwise noted. That reminds me i have a blue ray movie to watch tonight

LG hasnt been making these devices long and it could be just a simple need more time issue, but its pretty clear they need to fire dude man making the drivers for this product and make them more compliant.

So far as your computer i think its perfectly fine in that matter. Try another brand of blue ray device, if that doesnt work then we can say we have a real problem.

Thanks for your reply mate. I have to say you're right, because I used to work for a warranty company and we would deal with brands across the board, but the one brand with the most problems in regards to their products was LG. A never ending stream of people saying that their LG products have gone bust after only a short while or have never really worked properly since purchase..

But I hope this isn't the case this time, because I don't think I'd be able to RMA it.

The only thing else i can suggest is try flashing your motherboard bios and or trying the device on a different computer. LG is a hit and miss imo