XP halts when DVD inserted in DVD ROM drive

[Duc851]

I have had my HTPC for 6 years of pretty much trouble free use.
All of a sudden when I insert a DVD into the drive the computer stops responding as soon as the DVD player software loads (using Theatertek 1.5 as my default auto play program, however I have attempted also to manually start DVD video playback with WinDVD 6 and WMP 10 with same freeze problem). I have to turn power off and re-boot computer since there is no keyboard response when this happens.

I am able to start each DVD player software and configure it as long as there is no DVD in the drive. Once I attempt to play a DVD computer freezes when program starts to load.

I have tried re-formatting my drive and completely re-installing XP Pro twice with no luck. I cannot figure out why DVD playback would work fine for years and then suddenly not work unless it is a hardware problem?
I loaded all the XP updates and direct X 9.0c + WMP10 and WinDVD 6 and all the latest ATI RAdeon drivers and Audigy 2 drivers. Still no luck after two clean installs.

Specs are as follows:
Toshiba SD-M1612 DVD ROM drive
ATI Radeon 9000 128mb DDR AGP 2x
WD ATA 100 EIDE Hard Drive on Maxtor ATA100 PCI adapter
Soundblaster Audigy 2
Slot 1 A-Trend 6130 MB w/ Intel BX440 AGP chipset
Powerleap 1.4Ghz Intel Celeron
512MB SDRAM

No changes in hardware were made. Computer worked fine for years with the hardware listed above.

Please help as I am on the verge of abandoning the HTPC and getting a set top DVD player.

Thanks,

Gil

[deckard8]

Cannot be software problem, must be hardware as you've
re-installed a clean XP.

Is drive being detected properly by motherboard in bios?.
Is it showing as a hardware detected properly in Xp system hardware devices.
Try drive on new cable set as master on separate channel
(unplug all other optical drives first if you have any).
If possible try the drive in another machine. If it works,
it's probably a motherboard failure. If it doesn't - well, you need a
new drive. Lifespan of cheap DVD drives is about three years if used constantly.

[deckard8]

Before all that above, try dropping back to older Radeon graphics drivers for
your card. Could be latest one cause a conflict with your old 9000 card.

[Krispy Kritter]

Sounds like your drive is dead/failing. I've had the same problems in the past with failing HD's. Usually if you let it sit a few minutes it will recover and give you an access error. Try looking in the event viewer and see if any errors are being reported.