Pioneer DVD-R/RW Drives May Become Inoperable After Using or 2X DVD-RW Media

[George M. Shaheen]

My Compaq Presario 8000Z/CMT (8QSXE1) Pioneer DVD-RW DVR 104 (OEM Branded) CD/DVD burner has worked fine for two years. It sh_t the bed and does not read any media. I don't really know why for sure but....

HP/Compaq put out a Softpaq (SP22418) in 2002 but didn't tell me about it. I recently installed it after the drive stopped working and then "disappeared". I used a 2X DVD (mistakenly sent to me by a vendor) and figured it would work as well as the 1X DVD's. To date I have spent countless hours troubleshooting with no success. Device manager says everything is okay. Do these drives like DMA or PIO (whatever that is)??
I installed the new HP "Softpaq" firmware. I've reintalled Roxio 5.1 w/update multiple times.

Does anyone have any experience with Pioneer DVR 104?? If it ever works again would you recommend using Roxio software or somthing else??