[HoppaLong]

Operating System: XP Pro_SP3
Pioneer Model: DVR-2920Q

No one believes me, but I've never had any problems with optical drives,
going back to the early days of Windows 98.

I selected this model because a couple of my "geek" friends liked it a lot.
It comes with software that scans whatever disc you load in the tray,
and controls the write speed so you get an error free burn. These days,
this is very important. Almost all DVDs max out at 16x. I've seen several
burners that claim write speeds up 24x. As the the drive attempts to
spin-up to these ridiculous speeds, it often produces horrendous disc jitter.

The BIOS on my Gigabyte mobo recognized this internal SATA burner
immediately. In fact, it is now listed on the monitor screen during bootup,
along with my RAID 0 internal drives, and my two eSATA (external) drives.

I flashed the mobo BIOS a few months ago, and the chipset drivers are
up to date.

It is not listed in Windows Explorer, My Computer, or Device Manager. I tried
the "add hardware" wizard. XP found no new hardware.

I contacted Pioneer and received a one sentence reply. Try a different mobo
port for the SATA cable, or return the burner for a refund. I purchased it
directly from their website.

There is a fix that is listed on numerous sites. It removes leftover junk
in the XP registry after you've uninstalled burning software. This is not
a problem with my system.

The odds are very good that there is nothing wrong with cables or burner,
since the BIOS sees it very clearly. If I install another SATA burner I'm
very likely to have the same problem with XP.

Is there anything I can try within XP to resolve this problem?