Sony Optiarc and HP Dv 5 won't work. Need Help

[Devil_31]

I own an HP Pavillion DV 5 laptop with a Sony optiarc BD 5500s drive. A few days ago I popped in a Blu Ray (Cadillac Records) disc but the drive wouldn't even read that there was disc inserted.

I tried a few other Blu Ray movies that had worked before and they were slow to get started by they eventually started. But when I tried the new movie nothing happened. Then the drive stopped reading BD altogether. It sounds like the drive is trying to read the BD like it's a regular DVD. Then it just shows up blank.

I can still watch dvd's but just not blu ray. Does any have any idea what the problem might be?

I've already tried reinstalling it, system restore, and I even physically removed the drive from the laptop and nothing has worked. I unavoidably live in a dusty and sandy environment but not much of it has gotten into the laptop itself as everything else on the computer runs fine. And I used to have a bad habit of leaving BD movies on pause hours while out doing other stuff.