Help!! My Burner Can't Read Any Disks (Blank or Recorded) , Is it Dying On Me.

Hiya folks,

I have an older hp 8200i burner and recently I have been having problem
being able to read any cds. Be they blank cd-r or rw's or record ones, even
with audio cds. When inserted the burner just keeps on trying to read the cd
and the reading light just continues to flash. The weird part is, on a
random basis occasionally, a blank cd -r or rw will be read or detected and
I will be able to burn it. The problem isn't the median because one day a
particular disk can't be read and the next day when I try the same disk
again, it works or is read by the burner.

My question is, is my burner dying on me, if so what could be the
cause. Or could the problem be an incorrect jumper setup on the burner and a
dvd-rom I have on the same ide cable. If the problem was an incorrect jumper
setup, would the result be a burner which randomly works on occasion, or
would the result be a burner which either works all the time (correct jumper
setup) or doesn't operate any time (incorrect jumper setup).

On a side note, the burner and dvd-rom is recognized by the operating
system all the time. (i.e. it's seen in windows explorer)

Any comments or suggestions will greatly be appreciated, especially by
people who have insight or experienced this kind or problem.

Have a nice day,
Neemo

P.S. Computer System used:

Intel Pentium 4- 2.26Gigs
256 Megs Rdram
Cd-rw
Dvd-rom
40 Gig hard drive