The reason that DVD Decrypter froze might be simply because the drive took a shit. I've seen drives lose functionality prior to completely dying. The last DVD-RW drive I had in my desktop refused to burn anything; replacing it resolved the issue.
I tried googling the model (Pioneer DVDRTD08A DVD-RW) with no luck as far as firmware is concerned. (Why is laptop hardware such a fucking pain sometimes? Oh, right, companies think that laptop owners don't need the same level of tech support that regular computer owners do.... :<)
No, the problem is more than the Dells and HPs of the world like to control
everything about laptops. The situation where you could only use video card drivers provided by your OEM, for instance, was a 100% artificial limitation that managed to sneak its way into the manufacturers' agreement. Luckily, ATI and NVIDIA seemed to dislike getting pushed around to the point that you can actually get drivers directly from them now (not like that's stopped me...I'm using Mobility Modder to get the latest legacy drivers for my laptop, since Dell doesn't support this model past XP).
For further proof of this, look at all the stupid, STUPID adapters and plugs that they use. Believe it or not, there are standards as to how PCI-E video cards should connect to laptop motherboards. Additionally, there is also a standard for the way CD/DVD drives should mount into the case, and hard drives all use standard connectors. However, it's rare that you find a system that directly uses any of these standard connectors. It's a big, bloody mess.