Topic: DVD-R Drive Puzzler

[kskreider]

So I have owned my Sony RB30 desktop less than a year.  (One year warranty up in July)

I have gone through 2 (two) Sony brand DVD-R's (DW-D22a's).  The first came with the machine it totally died, then the second was the first's warranteed replacement and it does the same thing that my current drive, a NEC ND3540a does.  The drive will play, burn and otherwise recognize all DVD-+R media, homebrewed or not, but it will not recognize any CD-R media at all.  No Data CD's, no audio cd's, no blank cd's, nothing.  I am so puzzled.  Due to the fact that this happened with my Sony brand drive too (identical symptons) this must me due to a driver, or a chipset, right?  I tried uninstalling and re-installing the hardware with no help.  Then I tried to do a system restore back to the last three (about 2 weeks back) and none of the three restores took.  I am confused on what to try next.

Should I try to re-install some kind of chipset utility?  Should I swap the slave (CD-ROM) with the master (NEC)?  Should I just physically yank it and reboot a few times before physically putting it back in?  I am approaching being totally baffled.  A Sony tech told me that if a problem persisted past three attempted repairs I could ask for a refund.  I like the PC, but I am quickly realizing that for the $500 I should have built my own like last time. 

I am going to begin by un-installing some of my CD-related software (i.e. AnyDVD) etc and see if that works.  I am open to suggestions.

TIA.

[Chuck]

FWIW, I have a dedicated DVD-R (Sony) drive and a dedicated CD-R (Plextor) drive.
My Sony, I don't have the model # handy, does recognize anything I put in it.