Any suggestions on how I can get my HP laptop to play DVDs again?

Here's the sad story:
It used to play fine under the original Windows Me with WinDVD that came with it.

WinME was such a pain I partitioned the HD dual-boot and use Windows98 almost exclusively now.

In the meantime I biffed WindowsMe somehow.

I installed Media Player 9 under Win98 but it says it can't do DVDs except under XP.

I was thinking I could do a factory recovery of the original WinMe, but it looks like that will blow away my Win98 and other partitions as well.

Several questions here:
Can I get Media Player to play DVDs under Windows 98?
or
Is there another player that will do it?
or
Can I do a recovery of my Windows Me to its current boot partition without losing the Win98 and other partitions?

Thanks and Happy New Year, DaveBo