IDE DVD burning drives not recognizing disks

[Aggro]

A little while ago I updated the firmware (downloaded from the official website) on my NEC ND-6500A slim drive. Ever since then my drive has always recognized all blank DVD media ,with the exception of DVD-ROM video, as a "blank cd". Even though it still recognizes the media as a "blank cd" no data can be copied to the writable CD folder without receiving an error.

I have tried all common media including DVD+R, DVD+R DL, DVD-R, etc. but the results were always the same. I couldn't even rip data from previously burnt CDR's anymore without getting that annoying cyclic redundancy error.

Eventually, after a few weeks of work, I gave up and purchased (via Newegg) a NEC Optiarc DVD RW AD-7590A drive only to find that I am experiencing the exact same problems. I would greatly appreciate any help, since I have many gigs of data on my PC that I need to back up to disk. Also, if someone could offer me help that doesn't involve formating my hard drives beforehand that would be fantastic.

Here are some screenshots that may help (keep in mind that a blank DVD+R disk was in the drive while these were taken):











Again, I will greatly appreciate any help I receive, and if there is more info/screenshots that you need just let me know.

Thanks very much,

Aggro