a friend gave me a pioneer dvd drive and a cd rw drive but he didnt know where the software discs were. i hooked them up and the dvd drive, when i attempt to play a dvd, says i need dvd softwre installed. what kind are they talking about.the cd burner starts the burning prosess but right before it finishes it ejects the cd and saysthat the prosess could not continue and the disc may not be usable any more. i just boughtthe discs so i dont think that it is them. maybe someone could help me out.

To play a DVD disc, you need to install DVD decoding software, like Power DVD for example. They're not free though...

Disc drives shouldn't require drivers. All they use is something called "Firmware", and you can update it if needed. But you need to know the drive's model number.

DVD drives don't need drivers.Windows covers that area.
Some dvd players come with a video card driver disk,check your driver disk for software included but theres lots of free downloads.
http://www.simtel.net/vbrun.php

But Windows Media Player will play them.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...0/default.aspx

If you don't have a software DVD player like Power DVD or your Windows Media Player doesn't play DVDs, you need codecs. Microsoft offers some at this page on their site: Click here.

http://majorgeeks.com/search.php

But do you have a dvd software player yet ?
That all for me till you reply.