I have exactly the same issue...
I'm setting up my son's new computer, a dual core Compaq Presario Desktop. It has an HL-DT-ST- DVDRW GSA-H30L internal SATA drive as its only optical drive.
I completely cleaned the machine and reinstalled Win 7 Ultimate (from the DVD drive!) without problem and went about installing the software from his existing machine to the new one. Mid way through the install of a battle game (of which there is no problem with the disc as it plays perfectly on two other computers), the install failed and from that point on, I've not been able to read a disc in the player.
After a number of hours of pissing around, I swapped the drive out, and borrowed another one from another HP PC that was known to work perfectly. This drive immediately didn't work - immediately, no idea why not.
My first thought was there was something effectively "killing" the optical drives! I passed the computer to my IT manager at work to have a look at, and he gave it back to me (working), having swapped the SATA cable to another on the motherboard and a few other things. I trusted that it worked fine and didn't even try it, until tonight, and found that it doesn't work again, but this time partially. All that I've done is install about four different pieces of video conversion software all downloaded from the net.
I've read many, many forums on the net about non-playing DVD drives. I've followed all of the advice and solutions from them, and none of them have worked for me:
1 - I have removed the Upper / Lower filters from the Registry. This made no difference - in fact I've followed all of the advice from the MS website here: Your CD drive or DVD drive is missing or is not recognized by Windows or other programs#
2 - I have even added in my own new Upper and Lower filters as per another forum - this didn't work either: Itunes registry settings missing [Solved] | Kioskea.net
The computer did have the latest iTunes 10.6 software installed, so as a precaution, I've removed all of it, and indeed all Apple software from the PC - after reboot, this made no difference.
3 - The DVD drive is reported by Device Manager as present, correctly installed and working properly. I've been through the steps of uninstalling it and reinstalling it. Windows reports it as fully installed and working properly - this did not make a difference.
4 - The DVD drive is also correctly showing in Windows Explorer - however whenever a disc is put in the drive (just a standard R2 movie disc - and yes, the software is set to read UK / R2 DVD's), the green light on the drive will flash for about 15 seconds and then does nothing more. When you click on the DVD drive within Windows Explorer - it tries to read it for about 10 seconds, and the green bar passes across the top of the Win Explorer window, it then opens the drive and pops up a "Please insert disc into the Drive" window.
5 - I appear to have drilled this down to being some sort of hardware issue. With a Win 7 disc in the drive, the computer will boot from the disc, and / or read it when fully booted. I've put in several other software discs, inc Adobe Acrobat and Kaspersky 2011 - and the drive appears to read them all fine - in fact I'm installing Kaspersky from it as I type!
Therefore, I'm now pooped and out of ideas.... I don't understand why the drive will read computer software discs and not movie discs. Any thoughts?
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