PC DVD Player regional lockouts

see317

This may be better suited for Moe's, but I figured I'd start here.
I'm working on a Win7 PC, and the region on the DVD has been reset several times and wound up on region 2 when the counter ran out, the computer is not in region 2. So we're out of region resets on the system.
According to some looking around I've done, it seems the region resets are stored both in the operating system software and a counter in the hardware itself, so there's no easy registry edit to let me go in and change the number of resets or the region that's registered.

I'm wondering if replacing the optical drive would reset the counter and let me set it to Region 1, or if the software side of that counter will cause that to fail; but I haven't had much luck getting a straight forward yes or no on that front.

BlindZenDriver

Not an answer as such, but a suggestion to a possible work around depending you specific needs.

I imagine that while not being able to play DVD movies of the wrong region, that perhaps you can still use the drive to rip those DVD's and then play the ripped files from the hard drive. Not something I have tested, but depending on what you need it may be worth testing and doing so should be quick.

Hevach

I know moving a locked drive doesn't unlock it or lock other drives on that system - I have a regular region 1 unlocked optical drive and got a too-good-to-be-true deal off eBay that turned out to be locked on region 6, they're both in the same system. So at the very least, getting a new region 1 drive will suffice. Whether you'll be able to change the new drive in the future... I'm pretty sure you will be able to, but I can't promise you. My experience at least tells me that it won't magically turn into region 2 when you plug it in.

You can still rip DVDs of any region on any drive, though, and then either keep them on internal storage or burn a copy your drive can play (either the correct region or region free depending on the program and settings used).

Caedwyr

There is commercially available software available which bypasses the region locking on the drive. I've never tried it with a drive that has run out of region resets, but it might be a solution. I have used AnyDVD for years with only minimal problems in order to play my purchased DVDs & CDs.

see317

If this was my computer, ripping the discs would be an option, but I'm just trying to get it working. The end user is not exactly a tech savvy person, so I don't know that it would be the route to go.
I'll get a replacement drive and see how that goes.

Thanks everyone.