DVD Won't Play on PC/Laptop - Why and How to Fix It?

"DVD will not play on PC or laptop" arises. Inserting DVD into DVD-ROM, waiting for DVD loading & expecting it playing. Disappointingly, your PC or laptop seems unable to play. Typically, it shows a green screen in the media player or gets only sound.

In fact, the DVD won't play error happens frequently on your Windows 10/11 computers. How could this happen and get it fixed? You are not the first person to encounter the issue. But you're lucky to find this article which will elaborate the reasons and workarounds.

Part 1. Why Your DVD Failed to Play on PC/Laptop?

Computers will not play DVDs for lots of reasons. When your disc is corrupted or inserted improperly, your DVD drive won't read the disc at all. Similarly, when your disc drive is disabled or defective, you'll experience an error like no disc found on Windows 11/10/8/7. Whatever the case, this leads to DVD playback failure on computers. Some CD DVD drives can read both DVD+R and DVD-R discs. However, some CD/DVD-ROM drives can only read one of them. If you burn a DVD with a type of recordable DVD that the DVD-ROM drive does not support, the DVD will not play on your PC. Below are the most common reasons to why does your DVDs not play on your computer.

Also see: How to play DVDs on Windows 11 computers

• Your disc or DVD drive is disabled.
• Your DVD-ROM drive doesn't support the type of DVD.
• Display screen resolution doesn't match with the DVD.
• The region code of your DVD player and drive is not matchable with DVD disc.
• The DVD is broken, dirty or corrupted.
• Windows Media Player won't play DVDs.

Fix 1. Fix DVDs Not Playing on Computer due to Region Codes or Damages

If there are any scratches or dirt on a DVD, you can clean it to fix the DVD not playing problem. But if a DVD is servely damaged, you can't play the DVD on your computer or laptop anymore. In addition, the majority DVD players can only play DVDs that are encoded for the same region where the laptop was sold. A DVD won't play on a computer, DVD player, or drive from another region.

WinX DVD Ripper Platinum can help fix DVD not playing errors caused by damages, region codes, non-standard structure, or copy protections. It supports region-locked DVDs, unplayable & old DVDs, 99-title DVDs, DVDs with bad sectors, and other protected DVDs. It's able skip any damaged sectors on the disc and remove region codes or other protections. After it rips DVDs to MP4, AVI, WMV, FLV, 3GP, MOV and more, users can easily play the DVD videos on laptop without any physical DVD players.

This is another popular workaround to fix "DVD will not play on PC due to incompatible region code" issue. Don't worry this DVD decoder will lower the video audio quality. "Yadif Double Frames" De-interlacing tech and High Quality Engine are all on hands to give your resulting files the look you want, with 98% quality reserved!

Disclaimer: Digiarty Software does not advocate ripping copy-protected DVDs for any commercial purpose and suggests referring to the DVD copyright laws in your countries before doing so.

Fix 2. Try Another DVD Player to Play DVDs that won't Play on Computers

PC users may notice that DVDs are not playing on computer or latops running Windows 10 or Windows 11 via Windows Media Player. This is because Microsoft removed the ability to play DVDs from Windows Media Player. So you can't play DVDs on computer using it. Microsoft has introduced a $15 app named Windows DVD Player to play DVD specially.

Instead of trying the paid DVD player app from Microsoft, you can fix the DVD not playing errors using free options. 5KPlayer is professional DVD player software. Apart from playing home-made DVDs, it can also play DVDs with region code 1/2/3/4/5/6. With this tool, you will never meet "DVD will not play on PC owing to unsupported region code". Moreover, it is able to play DVDs encrypted by copy protection schemes like CSS, RCE, Sony ArccOS, UOPs, Disney X-project DRM, etc.

5KPlayer is workable on Windows 10/8/7, acting as an alternative to Windows 10 DVD Player for DVD playback. And the Deinterlacing feature helps convert interlaced scanning DVD movies to progressive scanning and thus delivers high video quality. Meanwhile, it can play the ISO image file and DVD folder.

Free Download 5KPlayer to Play DVD on Windows PC Easily

Fix 3. Check Your DVD Drive Status

If the DVD still doesn't play on your PC, something may go wrong with the DVD drive. In this case, you may also need to check the status of the DVD drive.

Step 1. Press Win +X keys to open Device Manager. On the windows of Device Manager, select DVD/CD-ROM drives and expand the category.

Step 2. If your DVD drive shows up with a yellow exclamation mark or a red X sign, your drive needs to be updated or reinstalled. Right-click on the drive name, and select Update or uninstall your DVD drive.

Step 3. If your DVD drive doesn't show up under the DVD/CD-ROM drives, you need to run the Command Prompt as administrator. Enter the following command and hit Enter:

reg.exe add “HKLMSystemCurrentControlSetServicesatapiController0” /f /v EnumDevice1 /t REG_DWORD /d 0x00000001

Step 4. Restart your computer and check if it fixes the problem that your computer won't play DVDs.

Other Common Solutions to DVD Not Playing on PC

• Make sure that the disc has been inserted properly into the DVD drive of the computer.
• Check if your CD or DVD-ROM drive is enabled or your disc is undamaged.
• If your computer doesn't have an internal DVD drive, check that the external DVD drive is connected firmly to your computer or laptop.
• The display of the computper may have a higher resolution and have problems to play a DVD at a lower resolution. If this is the case, you need to change your PC screen resolution to be compatible with the DVD you want to play. Start -> Control Panel -> Appearance and Personalization -> Adjust screen resolution. You may need to change your display resolution to 640x480 or 720x480.
• If nothing help fix the DVD won't play on your computer issues, try another drive as it's not expensive after all.