Optical drive recognized, discs spins but does not play

A friend asked me to re-install Window 10 due to a failing Hard drive. After the install incl. all current (20H2) MS updates I encounter the following problem. The Optical drive displays in File Manager (and Device Manger) but does not auto play and discs. When manually clicking on the device it says, “application not found”. When inserting the disc you can hear it spinning up but that is as far as it goes. Optical drive worked fine before the new Windows install.
So far: Removed DVD/CD Drive from Device manager. Check/reinstalled the driver. Checked REG for upper and Lower filter entries. Disable and re-enable AutoPlay.
Not yet tried: Removing all IDE/ATAPI Controllers

I have limited/remote access to the problem PC so suggestion may take a bit of time to try and respond/update. Thanks for any suggestions. The PC is an HP23-d027c, the optical drive is a DVDRAM CT80V (possibly GT80V).

So far she has tried to install software (Photoshop) and also tried a music cd, neither worked. You can hear the discs spin up after inserting the disc like you normally would but then nothing happens. I did suggest a VLC install but have not heard back yet. Thanks.

File explorer sees the optical drive under Devices and Drive " DVD RW Drive (E:)" but you can not see any file/folders to run Photoshop set up.exe manually, that when you get the "application not found" message. It is a windows version and was previously installed before hard drive crashed. She was able to install PS via an external USB optical drive. If VLC does not help I will run SFC first chance I get.