DVDs won't play

I'm resurrecting an old computer. It has an ASUS A7V8X MB, Athlon XP 3000+ CPU, 512 MB DDR, TI4400 GPU, one Plextor & one Samsung DVD burners & a fresh install of XP PRO. The problem is that XP freezes completely (requires restart) as soon as any DVD begins to open. CDs run fine. I feel this must be a software problem because a week ago the same machine with a different HDD running XP HOME played DVDs fine. I've tried both WMP & VLC and both freeze. BTW, I have installed an mpeg 2 decoder for WMP. I'm stumped.

If you haven't already done so, you might try downloading and installing SP2 and SP3 - and then see if the behavior changes...

Do you have an actual software DVD player installed, such as PowerDVD?

Yes, VLC should certainly be capable of playing your standard DVDs...