dvd writer drive problems

hi, please be patient with me, i am a new member with very little computer knowledge. in the last 3 months my desktop has had a new graphics card, then new motherboard and a new power supply. all was working fine again then 2 weeks ago my combination cd/dvd writer stopped reading all blank disc's (cd drive details said blanc disc 0 bytes), but still read game and film disc's all types. then at the start of this week it stopped reading any disc. so i bought a new" LG SUPER MULTI DVD REWRITER GSA-H55N " that is supposed to support all disc formats. and guess what , it only reads discs with data already on ( cd-r/dvdr are coming up as blank disk 0 bytes)
windows xp home is reading the drive, device manager states that the drive is working properly and troubleshoot has not got a clue ?
i have downloaded the latest drivers etc from lgservice website and still no better.
please can anyone help me ??

 

Although you are not getting any of the errors on this page, it seems a lot of the related errors are somewhat caused with the 3rd party installed upper/lower filters in the registry, so check to see you do not have anything like that, then I will continue further, ok?

So, please follow the instructions on that web site to make sure you do not have the mentioned registry values.

 

thanks for the reply, i tried this still no difference. I have now reset my pc -formatted hard drive & re-installed xp home. it still wont read any blank disc..
on my computer screen it says -DVD-RAM Drive ,when you right click 4 properties it says cd drive -file system unknown. then go into hardware tab and properties for this drive, on the volumes tab i populate for any blank disc type it states in partition style-- master boot record ?
i hope added info helps define this problem.. i have exchanged this drive for another same make & model exactly same problems..

 

Well, the issue really does sound like a hardware problem, more like either bad disc or the drive itself! Do these Cd/DVD medias work fine on another system?

How you fooled around with the internal wiring or the BIOS settings?
During bootup, go in to BIOS settings to see if it automatically recognizes your drive or not.
Do you have any other drives connected to the same ribbon cable that this drive is on? If so, please check the jumpers in the back of the drive to make sure there is no conflict, etc. Also, especially if BIOS does not see the drive, I'd try another port/cable. If it sees it then check the jumpers.

 

bios does recognise cd/dvd ram drive. hard drive connected on seperate cable. I have tried a different IDE ribbon and slot for the optical drive still no difference, the blank dvd-r im trying are from a brand new tower which do work on my friends pc.
many thanks for your help and patience

 

Well, try resettings your BIOS settings just in case if the DVD/CD-ROM related settings were off, it shuld set things right but if it doesn't sounds like the only suspect you have not cleared out is the drive itself...broken.