My DVD Rom won't recognise DVD,S

[cxcxcxvcvcvc]

I need some help with my computer please!!
Ok the problems all started when The other day the father in law removed nero7 and replaced it with nero 8 (he is the computer wizz in the family i know hardly anything ect) wich ended up being not full version and therefore was removed! now since then i have reinstalled an earlier version of nero and all looks to be well....untill i went to put a DVD-R into my computer and the computer does not recognize The DVD-R instead it only seems to recognize it as a CD i.e it comes up with a little box asking me what i would like to do with the Cd so i asked the father in law and he said to remove nero again to see if it still recognizes the DVD-R and still to no avail i cannot play DVD,s either as everytime i try to play them with windows media player i get an error message saying something like (direct draw is not enabled or something) so i did as it told me to and still it wont play and nero is not much better! In fact the only way i new my dvd rom is still working was using a program called dvd shrink wich i used to open the dvd and i then played it from its menu (if that makes sense lol) anyway any advice would be great! cheers!
P.s i am using XP home and my burner is a pioneer if this helps!

[Tom_1569]

Basic way around this is reboot with the DVD in the drive, dont ask my why or how this works, but its been known to work, trick is you have to do it EVERYTIME you put a DVD in.
When theire is now disc in the computer, go to mycomputer, and what is the dvd-rom drive called. It should be called eityher a dvd drive or cd rom drive. Also check it in device manager. It may be a driver problem somewhere along the line, problem is they are a plug n play driver, but you could always try "update driver" through device manager.
Just incase you dont know to get to device manager (xp)
Go Start>Control Panel > System. Then in the hard ware tab is a button for device manager.

[cxcxcxvcvcvc]

Basic way around this is reboot with the DVD in the drive, dont ask my why or how this works, but its been known to work, trick is you have to do it EVERYTIME you put a DVD in.
When theire is now disc in the computer, go to mycomputer, and what is the dvd-rom drive called. It should be called eityher a dvd drive or cd rom drive. Also check it in device manager. It may be a driver problem somewhere along the line, problem is they are a plug n play driver, but you could always try "update driver" through device manager.
Just incase you dont know to get to device manager (xp)
Go Start>Control Panel > System. Then in the hard ware tab is a button for device manager.

Cheers Tom! Will give it a run now!!

[cxcxcxvcvcvc]

When theire is now disc in the computer, go to mycomputer, and what is the dvd-rom drive called. It should be called eityher a dvd drive or cd rom drive.

Done! but still no go checked Under my computer is says,s CD Drive (D: ) but the picture above it has a cd with DVD-R on the cd
I also went to device manager and went to update driver but it said it could not find a better driver than the one it already has