I just got a sony AW-Q170A-B2 combo dvd burner driver from Newegg and installed it in my new build.  I have Windows Vista home basic running.  The drive will read the installation DVD and my battlefield 2 installation dvd.  When I put in an audio CD or a software title on CD the drive will not recognize it and vista tells me to put in an appropriate CD.  I can't find any location for firmware to flash the sony drive.  is this a Vista thing?  Or do I need a specific driver or something?  Device manager says the drive is installed and is working correctly.  
Please help

Do you have a bootable CD you can test? An old XP disc will do, or Vista itself if it comes on a CD rather than a DVD (don't know which).
 
If you can boot your machine from a CD, that will tell you that it's a software problem rather than hardware.

Actually, I have a DVD burner with the same problem.  It's a light on, but I don't remember the model, I can find it though being I use it as a second drive.  I've tried a second os to boot from, Knoppix and stuff, and the other doesn't work.  It won't burn, play, or even read a cd, but no problems with a DVD.  I've tried alone on IDE connection in a known good IDE cable, in a known good connector on the Mobo, and still nothing. tried playing a CD with it just powered up and not connected another way (has a head phone jack).  The manufacturer said it doesn’t have a second lens, but couldn't find out if there was anything else I could do.

it will not boot my windows xp install cd...it has not read any cd's...ugh i'm just tired of all this vista compatibility crap...

 
If you just used another OS and it's not seeing the CD then it's not vista.

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The liteon that I have, I had for more then 90 days before the problem happened, and now the DVD Drive is over 3 years old. Still reads DVD's though, so I use it as a second drive.

Had it for 90 days. well scratch that idea.
 
All mine went the other way...CD worked and i blew the dvd part

Well, I haven't found any great code or anything to answer my problem.  It's down right time for me to open the thing up and look inside.  8)

Same problem with my 8x single layer liteon SOHW-something from 2003 dvd's yes, but CD's no.
 
did it's duty though so I went with a SATA DVD burner from liteon. works really nicely the last 5 burns.

It was eather 2003 or 2004 that I got my liteon.
 
Edit: it's an 8X dvd +r  burner model LDW-851S made December 2003.

Exact same problem here.
 
LG all-format DVD/CD burner bought about 4 months ago.  DVD's are fine, but will not read/write any kind of CD including store-bought music CD and CD-RW's.

Same here.  NEC 3540a, reads DVD's fine, movies and software.  But will not read any CD's, music or software. Will not detect them at all. Puzzled.

Mine's a Liteon LH-18A1H 487C. Got it for the dual layer and the lightscribe less than 2 weeks ago, worked fine for 1 week. Uses generic Microsoft CDROM driver but won't read CDs. Nero software tells me it reads CDs too, but won't recognize any CD I put in. DVD's fine so far. Strange. Not booting so I'm taking it back before the warranty expires.

I had a HP 740 I drive. same thing it would read DVD but refused to read or burn CDs. I had the drive about 3 months and took it back to walmart. Gave a lame story and got a sony that works perfectly. My Sony is a 820  

 
same problem for me too, same drive - 3540a. one day it just decided not to work with CDs anymore. so i have that to burn dvds and another cd rw drive to do my CDs.  
 
seems like a lot of cd drives do these after a bit of use. the ps2 seemed to have this problem too, if i recall. it would read ps2 dvds, but not ps1 cds after a while.
 

If you cannot boot from a bootable CD, it is BROKEN!
It is NOT a windows problem. If you have just bought it or it is under Warranty, get it exchanged! There are two different lasers, one for CDs and a different one for DVDs. So you all have faulty CD lasers.
 
     Mike.

I have the SAME PROBLEM.
 
The problem ABSOLUTELY 100% is Vista.  My XP CD and Vista DVD both boot at start up.
 
Get into the OS and suddenly any CD I put in is not detected by Vista at all!
 
I should have gotten a freakin' Mac!