Dvd and external hard drive help?

So I used to be able to play dvds on my comp, and I can't remember if maybe I wiped my hard drive clean since the last time or not or maybe accidentally deleted some program I need to play them, but dvds no longer work for my computer. Like my dvd-rw...

drive just doesn't even recognize that I've even put in a disc. But cds work.. It's just not dvds.

Other than that, my hard drive is pretty full and I was going to free some space but I can't get anything on my external hard drive. It takes a few times hitting the off/on button before my computer even recognizes that the thing is hooked up, and then when I try to copy/paste or drag files to my external hard drive folder, I get a pop up saying cannot create or replace: cannot find specified file. Make sure you specify the correct path and file name.

Help would be greatly appreciated, as calling dell tech support is such a pain in the a**.

You might havea virus. Hardware conflict. Or maybe you need to download a driver for your external harddrive. Or reinstall it anyway. One problem you have is your using a Dell computer. For the money you spend on it, it is a good system. But, Dell in all honesty is a horrible system. Gateway sucks, too. Do you download a lot of things on the internet? I'm not talking about legal stuff. Do you look at a lot of porn? How good is your anti-virus? It could be one of a thousand things that is going wrong with your computer. Without knowing more of your systems problems other then one error message there isn't much you can do in this advice room without going to a tech site. Did you install your external harddrive driver correctly? I don't know what else to tell you other then Dell tech support is horrible.

no virus, my virus protection is beast. (AVG) no driver, it's supposed to install automatically. dell sucks, I know, not as much as gateway though. I do dl a lot, mostly music and movies. I have too much trouble with porn, so I gave up on that forever ago lolxz. yes I installed the hard drive correctly, I've used it before and it's worked.. tech sites are annoying. and I have pretty good luck with dell tech support, maybe you haven't called them in a while cause they're generally pretty awesome when I call.

ANYWAY. I got my ex hard drive to work, supposedly the connection is bad in some places on my modem then others? so I just had to move the usb cord to a different hook up. it's working great now. I'm still having trouble with my dvd rw drive, and now my internet is acting screwy. ugh! it's a vicious cycle.