DVDs from the rental services have copy protection and can't be ripped without crossing a legal line. You can buy ripping software in the $25-$50 price range that defeats protection, but the use of which is questionable and theoretically limited to making "backup" copies of disks you own and not those you rent. Some prior copy protection beating software providers have been shut down in prior years by legal action. Personally, I'd stay away from it. It's cheaper to buy an external DVD drive. As to your now not working sound, try playing with the Control Panel and keyboard volume controls, it sounds like sometime could have been unknowingly been turned off. Unless the plugin socket broke, the PC mostly doesn't know or care what's plugged in to it.

I'm sorry kudzu9, I didn't see your response since I was so busy looking for those graphics to post. I read over the article you linked to and must say I disagree. With this particularly......... "Surprisingly, in both of those cases, video playback can actually look quite good. What I mean is that if you're using your TV as a computer monitor and to do typical things like reading email or surfing the web, you'll be quite disappointed. However if you are playing back a video - say playing a DVD in your computer and watching it on the monitor - it seems to be quite acceptable." My experience since 1999 is just the opposite. My computer monitor displays just fine. I do video editing and photo videos on the computer while displaying and recording to the television. Those are acceptable also. However, playing a DVD on the computer produces a horrible picture on the TV. The reason is as he explained - the TV does not have enough lines to re-produce the color, so the picture is awful. I cannot explain why when recording to VCR or DVR, the picture is not noticeably affected. He also suggested S-video hookup, but that cannot work since S-video is output, not input. Both the output device (computer's capability or video card) as well as the input device (TV,VCR, or DVR) must be S-video capable. Most televisions and VCRs are not. Therefore, outputting/broadcasting in S-video is useless when going from the computer to the TV. It's doubtful the television will pick up any signal at all, much less one of better quality. You'd have to go from computer to VCR (or DVR) to TV. And, that poses still another problem since today's VCRs do not support the signal from the monitor in color, only in B&W. When my old VCR went out and I had to purchase a new, I had a rude awakening. I took it back for a different brand - didn't work either. Took that one back for a VERY EXPENSIVE Sony with all the bells, whistles, and hookups - still didn't work. What I ended up doing was giving my new Sony to my cousin in trade for his old VCR - his beloved old one so it took some doing LOL. Not even the new VERY EXPENSIVE Sony enticed him, so I had to beg. It has been three years and I still get his complaints. When his old VCR goes out on me, my only option is to find one at a second hand shop or a pawn shop. With all that said, I must include being able to use my DVR for that purpose even though I cannot use a relatively new model VCR. And, it must be a DVR and not a DVD player. DVD players are not input capable (none that I've seen but there may be some) since you must be able to plug the video card into it. Clear as mud? LOL

So with the activity light coming on we now know the power is there on both drives. Normally after that period of slower flashing it would/should start to flash much quicker indicating it is reading the CD but you do not get that. Try checking the Device manager click Start click Control panel click System click Hardware click Device manager Now in this new window look for yellow exclamation or question marks. Double click on any if they are present and see what it brings up. If no yellow marks then look for and double click on DVD/CD ROM drives, click the various tabs looking for error messages or it telling you the device is working properly. When you try a CD are you using a music CD or some software program? Try a music CD then open Windows Media Player and see what happens when you try to play the music. We might be clutching at straws here but if you exhaust all avenues before spending your money on a repairman it might be worth it.

the safety part yes it should be safe, my friend uses hers to order online and I think she does some banking too. The printer you need to check the list they have for the ones that are definitely compatible my friend has use 2 different ones with no problems, for mouse she had to try a few usb plug and play versions till she hit one she liked that worked well, using a usb wireless mouse is a good idea since the keyboard is wireless too, now the remote can be used to take on some of the duties of a mouse and the keyboard that comes with it is a specially designed one that has special keys to do certain things, the usb ports are in the back of the unit so I had her get a usb cord to be able to run it to the front then plug in a little usb hub to plug her mouse into that gives more usb ports. I would definitely go to the forums they have some very good ones dedicated to these units. My friend has learned so much about hers from those forums. You do not have to worry about getting any updates the updates are sent right to the units and remember this is not a regular pc so no software can be loaded but you can use websites like google Docs to do word processing and docs and spreadsheets etc and you can then have your printer print them.. You can set up other email on line if you prefer also. My suggestion on the mouse would be a small notebook sized mouse in usb wireless. They are smaller and easier to handle with older hands or arthritic hands, I have arthritis and I much prefer using a small mouse. you can google search for some of the forums but I know my friend said it has links to them on her unit home page.