Problem with freeze-ups when playing DVD's in DVD-ROM

I have a Sony DVD-ROM drive in my self-built Windows 98 system. I have
a problem that very frequently when I'm playing a movie DVD the playback
will freeze at a particular point. The drive then makes a high-pitched
whining noice as it (apparently) tries to read the disk, and after a
minute or two I get the BSoD, stating that there was a fatal error in
some VxD (DVD driver?) and that Windows should be restarted.

I realize that part of the problem may be that I frequently play
scratchy library DVD's in my drive, but it also occasionally happens
with disks that I own, which I handle as gingerly as a newborn baby.
Is there anything I can do to address this problem? If I got a
different DVD playback software app, a different DVD-ROM drive, or a
decoder card, would any of those things make my system more "tolerant"
of glitches and errors on the DVD disks?

Here is my system in detail:

CPU: AMD Duron 950Mhz
Chipset: VIA KT133A AGP
Video: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400
DVD-ROM: Sony DDU1621, Firmware S1.6
Memory : 256M SDRAM
OS : Windows 98 SE
Player : Cyberlink PowerDVD

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

--
Dave

On Sun, 09 Jan 2005 04:53:34 GMT, Dave Hardenbrook
<daveh47.DeleteThis@mindspring.com> wrote:

 >I have a Sony DVD-ROM drive in my self-built Windows 98 system. I have
 >a problem that very frequently when I'm playing a movie DVD the playback
 >will freeze at a particular point. The drive then makes a high-pitched
 >whining noice as it (apparently) tries to read the disk, and after a
 >minute or two I get the BSoD, stating that there was a fatal error in
 >some VxD (DVD driver?) and that Windows should be restarted.
 >
 >I realize that part of the problem may be that I frequently play
 >scratchy library DVD's in my drive, but it also occasionally happens
 >with disks that I own, which I handle as gingerly as a newborn baby.
 >Is there anything I can do to address this problem? If I got a
 >different DVD playback software app, a different DVD-ROM drive, or a
 >decoder card, would any of those things make my system more "tolerant"
 >of glitches and errors on the DVD disks?

Looks like the error correction on your particular DVD drive is crap
so you may want to invest in a new drive. You do have UDMA turned on
for the drive, right?<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->