I have had a gateway computer since 10/04/2006 with lots of memory - all the bells and whistles. Not long after I got it, it quit. Fortunately, I bought the in home warrantly plan for 3 years. They came to my house and replaced it. Not long after that, that one quit... again they replaced it again. Now it has quit, yet again! - the brand is a lite-on burner (they all have been)- date 04.2006. I decided to just go buy a burner myself and install it - since it is very easy to do. I bought an hp and easily installed it - it worked perfectly - for one disc only! Then it started doing exactly what the lite on was doing - it will copy a source disc,
Then when I insert a brand new writable disc (I have tried several different brands to make sure it was not the disc) it just sits there and says: please insert a writable disc into the drive. Or if I try to make a new mixed audio disc from Realplayer, it says "no disc has been inserted. You must have a writable disc inserted and have files to begin a burn. Then it says if disc has already been inserted- press F5 to refresh and try again. It will not work. It does exactly the same thing with both burners, so now I am wondering if it is something internal on my computer. I have tried updating the drivers on both - both says I am using the latest version available. Before this started about two weeks ago, the burner worked perfectly. I was transferring home vhs tapes to DVD and making mixed music discs just fine. Then I didn't use it for a while and when I tried to make a new mixed disc, this all started. I put the old burner back in, again it read the source CD, but won't recognize the writable one. Can anyone offer any advice on this? Thanks

Have you tried to update the firmware? That could solve the issues. Also check out your BIOS settings and see if it is listed in it. Good luck!

I am not really sure what you mean by "firmware". I did change out the data cable, in case the one I currently had was defective. I got exactly the same result.

I have not checked the BIOS settings yet. What should be listed there? The name of the device? Thanks.

It would be listed twice, once under drives and then once under boot sequence. Firmware is the software plus drivers. Type the manufacture of the drive plus the model(you find this out under the device manager) plus the word firmware in Google.

Good luck!

I have a lite-on that has never stopped working after I replaced my defective hp burner. And the fact that you keep replacing it with new burners tells me it's probably your computer, not the burners.
It's good that you replaced the cable. Next, I would clean the contacts on the burner's connector to the motherboard. Keep working on it, and it'll fix. Post back with results.

These two sites may help you troubleshoot the problem:
Uninstalling IDE controller for PIO problem [Archive] - Doom9's Forum
And,
HELP: DVD Burner drive is not available??? - Club CDFreaks - Knowledge is Power

Hello and thanks to all who answered. Just wanted to follow up and let you know that
Best Buy ended up replacing my burner again - for the THIRD time since 2006. They said
If it happens one more time, I would qualify under the lemon law, and maybe get a whole
New computer. So, we shall see. Thanks again.