cd drive not detecting blank CD-R

Until a couple of weeks ago I have always been able to make music CDs, etc. All of a sudden, it says "insert empty CD" whenever I try to burn my compilation in Nero.

It IS reading disks with data already on it, and also reading blank DVD-Rs.

I am using Windows XP Professional, and have tried two different brands of CD-Rs. The ones I have right now are Verbatim.

I flashed the drive firmware back in February '06....

About a month ago I was doing a lot of messing around with my vurtual memory because the project required a lot. Right now I have it set on "System managed" paging file size 167 mb.

I have never cleaned the fans and don't even know what they look like, but a couple of months ago I checked the temp, and it said it was fine.

I also ran aspichk and it is fine.

I am at a loss on what to try next. You guys are great and have helped me before. Any suggestions?

Oh yeah... the drive is HP DVD640. Also, I'm not sure, but in the past I think I have been using CD+Rs. This time, CD-Rs were all the store had. Would that make a difference?

Thanks a lot!


Michelle