GAH! my WMP won't play dvds!!!

I recently reformatted my Sony Vaio PCG-V505BX model... it's about one year old and a nasty virus took hold of it...

so my friend erased all the files and basically reformatted wtih Windows XP Pro.

Problem though. I can't play dvds! My Windows Media Player will play anything BUT dvds! I downloaded the "plugins" and payed for the PowerDvd program and although the PowerDvd semi-works (the picture quality and smoothness is awful), WMP still won't play.

I am at a LOSS of waht to do.

PLEASE HELP!

If you used the Sony restore CD ROMs your computer should be as it was when new.

If you used Retail/OEM version of WindowsXP you are far from done configuring the OS and this can contribute to your problem.

Retail/OEM version of WindowsXP does not install chipset drivers for the motherboard preventing DMA (Direct Memory Access) UDAM (Ultra Direct Memory Access) for the IDE channels.

At the very least you need to install the chipset drivers for the motherboard and enable DMA for all your drives.