Help with CD burning/CD-ROM drivers!!

[littleady2389]

I have a Sony Vaio VGN-NR498E using Windows vista. I have installed/uninstalled various programs over the past 2 years. I have always used nothing but Windows Media Player for my media needs and have the current edition.

My comp will not recognized that there is a blank CD-R in the drive, therefor I can no longer burn Cd's. Other disc's can be read just not CD-R's.

I have downloaded every update that Sony eSupport has to offer. I have reinstalled the drivers, made sure recording is enabled, and obviously tried several different blank CD's. I also tried a few H_KEY techniques, NOTHING IS WORKING  My laptop could burn CD's in the past but recently i can not.

I was starting to think that possibly my CD-ROM drive may be missing, or possibly i have mistakenly uninstalled a program that is used to read/write CD-R's.

when looking under "Device Manager" and expand DVD/CD-ROM drives there is only one listed called: "PIONEER DVD-RW DVRKD08 ATA Device" Should there also be some sort of CD-ROM device listed here as well?

I am at a complete loss, I sure hope some one out there has the answer!!

[Mulreay]

Your slightly unclear as in what you can and can't do. You may have burnt out the motor speed to burn CD's I'm no guru on this but my optical can play CD's but no longer play or burn DVD's as the drive/motor is over used and to be fair dead.
This sounds more and more like a hardware issue than a software problem the more I think about it.

I may be wrong...

[Salmon Trout]

my optical can play CD's but no longer play or burn DVD's as the drive/motor is over used and to be fair dead.

Surely this is laser problem, not a motor problem. An optical drive may have up to 4 lasers as follows:

CD-ROM: CD read laser
CD-RW: CD read laser, CD write laser
DVD-ROM: CD read laser, DVD read laser
DVD-RW: CD read laser, DVD read laser, CD write laser, DVD write laser

The failure or deterioration of one laser diode would affect the drive's functioning in a certain way that you can easily guess. Note that if a read laser fails a burner can no longer burn that type of disk.

littleady2389, it sounds like either your CD read or write lasers have failed. (If a read laser is failed, you cannot read or write)

The device listed in your Device Manager is a DVD-RW device. This is a DVD burner. They can also burn CDs. So you do not need any other device listed.