DVD drive not seeing disks

[Canid]

Our "Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-107D" is consistently refusing to see certain
types of disk, that it used to be able to read and write.
156MB CD-RWs and DVD-Rs do not show up - the drive appears to be
empty.
CD/CD-Rs play and write normally.
Windows says the device is working fine, and we have the most recent
driver. This is intensely annoying. Do I need a different driver? Is
it a problem with the DVD drive? Is there a way I can find out? Please
help!

 

[Malke]

Our "Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-107D" is consistently refusing to see certain
types of disk, that it used to be able to read and write.
156MB CD-RWs and DVD-Rs do not show up - the drive appears to be
empty.
CD/CD-Rs play and write normally.
Windows says the device is working fine, and we have the most recent
driver. This is intensely annoying. Do I need a different driver? Is
it a problem with the DVD drive? Is there a way I can find out? Please
help!

Usually when this sort of thing happens it's time to replace the drive. You
can try a drive cleaning kit first, but with DVD-RW drives as cheap as they
are, I'd just swap the drive out for a known-working one. If everything is
better with the substitute, then simply replace the original drive.

Malke