It does lightscribe! It reads DVDs! It burns DVDs! It burns CDs! It does dual layer!

It's the HP model TS-H653N!
..and it's broken.

Whenever I insert any format, CD or DVD, it seems to read it (the light flashes and it makes noises) for about half an hour; yet nothing comes up. Opening the drive in Windows causes explorer to momentarily freeze and then it opens an empty folder.

I've had it open and cleaned the lens, that didn't fix the problem. Switched SATA cables, still didn't solve it. It's not a Windows issue, because it acts the same with Ubuntu.

Anybody help? I just want to play some music only found on that CD :'C

Make sure that your drivers are up to date and that your DVD drive firmware is also up to date, it is possibly a Windows problem so do not rule that out (i know it happens in Ubuntu too but that's irrelevant). If both are up to date, let me know and i'll guide you through deleting the upper & lower filters which should fix your problem

I've looked everywhere, and can't even find a place to download any sort of firmware updates. Windows Update says that I'm all up to date in the driver section. Let's move on to option 2 then I suppose, because at this point it just doesn't get any worse than unusable

(edit: should probably mention specific OS. Windows XP SP3.)

I'm presuming you are familiar and comfortable editing the registry here;

If so, navigate to;

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

In the right hand pane, delete the UpperFilters & LowerFilters key

Reboot.

Report.

There were no upperfilter/lowerfilter key entries in it. What now?

Check again & also check the sub keys for the filters.

Nope, not in there. Which makes sense enough; this pc was pre-owned. I bought it at a (reputable, mind you) pawn shop. It stopped working when I had my Carbon dvd in there, and click *check for updates* (that was when the website refused to load and I just closed the browser, only to go back to the game's little menu window and found it frozen. Think that could've had anything to do with it?

If it didn't actually update anything then no, it's unrelated. I find it very odd the the filters are not there, maybe this is the problem it's self???
Any one else have any ideas?

It's very possible that could be the problem. I don't work with the registry a lot, but I am familiar with the lowerfilter/upperfilter key entries and I think those entries are in my registry.
I just wonder if there's a way to add those key entries back to the registry.

If it's not that, then maybe it's the software that's being used. I have Windows XP SP3, and my laptop only came with a CD R RW/DVD drive. I think that was because XP operating systems only have CD burning capabilities built in. I purchased an external DVD R/RW burner/drive so I could write and burn to DVDS. Roxio Easy CD and DVD Burning came with the external DVD drive and it works great. I also use ImgBurn (free software), which works really well.

It might be as simple as the software that's being used. I purchased my external DVD drive from Dell. When I purchased it, I was given the choice of Roxio Easy CD and DVD Burning or Nero. The Dell tech I talked to told me that there were burning problems with Nero and suggested Roxio instead.

But I'm more inclined to think it's the drive itself, or the firmware on it rather than software, because it behaves the same under all the operating systems I've run on here (XP, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and recently Mint)

Regardless, I've unhooked it, tried different SATA ports, cables, and so on but nothing works. So I've just stopped using it altogether (because really, I don't use CDs anymore and I have a DVD player downstairs :p