Hello , I am having this problem with my laptop. Al throw my CD/DVD writer it's working just fine... it's rotating when reading a CD, and i see the green led on/off , it's not seen by my BIOS. Windows see it , but when i put an CD i can't access F:\ ... it's just saying Please insert a valid disk into drive F: or something like that. Also in BIOS i can't see anything listen in the ATAPI section. I tried to remove the device from Devie Manager, but Windows detect it .. and reinstall the driver, if i click on search new devices... it also detect the real name, etc of the cd/dvd recorder. .... So what's the problem ?!
I have a similar problem with my LG DVD Writer. It plays DVDs but it somehow cant read CDs. Dont know why......
It probarly needs a firmware update,since it's a oem product only way is to bring it back to the vendor. Seems you're not the only one with this issue,btw what model do you have?