I went to the web searching for possible answers. I saw one post in a forum of a guy who experienced the same problem but there was no response from others. After reading that, I started to feel helpless until I visited the product page in the Samsung site and saw that they have a guide for firmware updates.

Hmmm. Seemed like I had nothing to lose (except for the DVD player) so I downloaded the PDF guide and the firmware file and followed the steps. I have to admit this isn’t exactly the most user-friendly manual in the world, but I managed to figure things out. Now my DVD is back in tip-top condition. It can now play region 3 discs and I’ve yet to try if it can still play region 1 discs as well. If it won’t, it doesn’t matter. I have my new Blu-ray player to do that job.

The moral of the story? I can think of several:
1. It’s OK to play around with your stuff as long as you can fix it or at least be willing to pay the consequences.
2. Common sense is way better than Google.
3. Don’t be greedy. If I didn’t wish for a multi-region DVD player, I wouldn’t have had this problem in the first place.