CDs will work just fine, I can load them in Rhythmbox and it's all fine, but if I put a DVD in, it just spins for a while and nothing shows up, not even the files showing that a disc is inserted.
Laptop is a Dell Inspiron 5759 running Zorin OS 18.1
I'm not sure if this site can help you to solve the problem:
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Welcome to the Forum!
What Video Player You use to play the DVD's?
Hi and welcome.
A.I. results from Brave search engine:
" A DVD drive that reads CDs but not DVDs is typically suffering from a hardware failure of the DVD-specific laser diode , as combination drives use separate lasers for each disc format. While software issues like corrupted registry entries or missing drivers can cause recognition errors, the inability to read any DVD (while CDs work) strongly indicates the red laser for DVD reading has malfunctioned or burned out .
Common troubleshooting steps include:
- Cleaning the drive : Dust or debris on the lens can interfere with reading; use a compressed air can or a specialized cleaning disc."
On a none A.I. search indicates the same lense is used but for DVD reading uses different infrared wavelengths. It could be that some firmware has failed that tells the lense to read DVDs.
Other possible issues, wrong regional DVD placed in Optical drive or you live in a region that is not allowed to use DVD codecs.
just needs to be configured is all now blurays disks is another story it requires abit more stuff but those can work as well i have both dvd and blurays i can play in mine i can also burn blurays as well Just follow what @Forpli posted and your dvds will start working
Bluray was never present in the Spec of that particular Dell. 
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Im just wierd is all i sometimes do backups to bluray disks but i do have a desktop wasnt really into laptops as they require way more knowledge to repair, desktops on the other hand are far easier.... 
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I tried that but it didn't seem to do anything.
what player app are you using to play them? Ah i see your tyring to use Rhythmbox its not designed to play dvds i use VLC to play DVDs trying installing it then you will need a few things using the ternimal to get them working
once you have vlc installed open a terminal and type
sudo apt install libdvdcss2
place a DVD in your player then
open VLC and select Media > Open Disc, then on the menu that appears 'DVD' should be selected and 'Disc device' should be the location of your DVD disc.
If your DVD player is connected, there should be a device /dev/cdrom or /dev/sr0
Hit play at bottom right and it should start