Hello... Before you chuck out your DVD burner you might want to try a few things.. Namely can you write to your drive using third party software. I suggest that you download Image Burn. Pretty simple to install and run and its free.. I suggest this because I have a similar problem with my drive NEC DVD_RW ND-3550A. I am running Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Service Pack 2 (build 3790) and it will not write nor recognize a blank cd in the drive. Using Image Burn I was able to read the blank disc i.e., free space and used space. I then wrote to the disc which was successful.
I did a few modifications to the registry.. because not only could I not write to the cd but could not read a previously recorded cd. The changes that I made to the registry were: renaming upper and lower filters to upperfiltersold and lowerfiltersold.. Reason for renaming is that if the change did not fix the read problem all you have to do is restore the keys to the original.. By the way the change to the registry did fix the problem of not being able to read a previously recorded CD.
I have no vested interest in Image Burn.. it just works for me.. Its URL is imageburn.com
One last thing.. and this I assume that you have already tried, is to ensure that the write enable box in properties for the drive is enabled.. i.e., checkmarked. Again I assume that you know how to get to drive properties.. but just for kicks will list the procedure here: Right click on your disc drive letter/icon...(mine is D), on the drop down menu click on properties, on the properties menu click on the Recording Tab. On the recording tab you will see a box titled "Enable desk top recording" If the box is not checkmarked do so... and then see if this fixes you problem. If it is checked marked then I think that you have either a driver problem or a corrupted registry assuming that you were able to read and write to the drive using Imageburn..
Hope this has been of some help
Bob