I have two BMW repair manual DVD's that I cannot get to load. The only thing that I can think of is that my old laptop that was having some problems, one being the optical drive, damaged the disk.

My new laptop won't load the disk, I can look at the drive and see the files, but it won't run the application. The one time it looked like it might work it had question marks were I would have expected a box to click to proceed...if that makes sense.

Thanks
220

it is possible, but unlikely.
nothing physically touches the disk, but it could be over spun and cause it to be damaged due to that.

but if you can see the files, why not create an iso and burn a new one. or copy it all to your hd and run it from there

I tried to make an ISO last night. One disk it worked and while I can see the files on the other disk it won't create an ISO.

does it need to be bootable to work?
if not, just copy the files off and see if you can burn to cd/dvd, or see if you can run from the hd.

I tried to copy the files, that's was the first thing I did. Something has got to be wrong with the disk, physically it's in good shape.

I appreciate the the suggestion to do the ISO, it saved one. I found a replacement for the other on Ebay and got it.

that does happen too.
dvd's and cd's have a finite shelf life. the materials degrade.
I burn a new set every year or so of files saved on hdd. because I have gone back to old ones to verify the data and some files are not readable.