dvd burner doesn't recognize dvd's or cd's

I have been searching for how to fix my dvd burner but it seems like everyone's problem is that the dvd burner is not being recognized by windows, my player is recognized by windows, the dvd drive shows up under "my computer," I can open it by clicking on eject in windows.
The problem I am having is that when I put a cd or dvd in the drive it doesn't recognize that there's anything in it. The green light comes on for a minute and it looks like the dvd is spinning but nothing shows up as being in there, I used a program that shows you the dvd info and it says there's no disk in the drive when there is a disk in the drive so I don't know how to get my dvd player to read the disks. I've tried everything from software, cd's with music, dvd movies in all diff formats, I want to try to reformat my computer but when I put my windows disk in there it's not reading that either. The only way I can think of fixing it that I haven't tried yet is by reformatting so it'll be restored to original settings but how can I reformat my computer if it can't read the windows disk? I kind of tried to mount the iso image I have saved on computer with power iso, the stuff on the disk is showing up but I can't get it to just run it all together like it does when you put a cd in so I tried clicking on diff stuff that's in the file but it seems like it has to be ran altogether or in a certain order so I couldn't get it to work by mounting the windows iso image.
I hope this all make sense, I'm just trying to explain what's going on and what I have tried to see if anyone has any ideas to fix the dvd burner or reformat my computer without being able to use the dvd drive (no usb either)
Thanks for any help.

 

There is a possibility that you somehow got a rootkit or virus that is preventing the drive from working properly, such as in this thread:

http://forums.afterdawn.com/t.cfm/f-77/burner_and_drive_problems-799319/

However, that being said, why do you seem so convined that this HAS to be a software problem.???

Did you try replacing the DVD drive? The drive laser very well could be dead, and all the drive electronics (such as interface, tray motor, eject button) can be functioning but if the laser is bad, you will get the exact symptoms that you are seeing.

 

I have the same problem. It is not a virus. I was able to get it to recognize cds by right clicking on the DVD Recorder in My Computer and selecting properties and then enabling recording. But it only has an option for CDs. It still will not recognize recordable DVDs (it does recognize regular DVDs just fine).

I am using Windows XP SP3 with an external usb DVD recorder.