System Hang When DVD Software Launched

[squarehippies]

hi... i have a serious problem (i think) of my asus e616 dvd drive. purchased it couple of month ago and it worked really really fine with my system (using any dvd software). but yesterday when i inserted a dvd (i haven't watched any dvd for about a week before that), i launched my windvd and to my surprise, the system hang! the cursor won't move but the hard disk light still turned on but not blinking. tried the same with powerdvd and the same problem goes on! i have tried playing manually (fiule>open>video_ts>vob files) using windows media player 6.4 and luckily it plays, but i cannot go backward of the movie and some of the chapter's markers are missing. i think it's not the disc problem because i have tried various disc that i played fine before. is it the drive problem or is it something wrong with my operating system as i install something between the playback? i'm using:
windows xp professional
pentium III 1ghz
256mb sdram
20.0 gb hard disk

at first i thought it was because the hard disk was fragmented and after defrag, the same prob occured. pls help, if it's the drive prob i want to get changed b4 the warranty is over!

[setarip]

"i have tried playing manually (fiule>open>video_ts>vob files) using windows media player 6.4 and luckily it plays"

This would indicate that it's a software, rather than a hardware problem...