About a week ago my computer auto-updated some programs and suddenly my cd burner started acting up...instead of burning files to a disc, it began asking me to save the job as an Image file or an ISO file (these are the only options available now), it would then continue through the burning session but instead of writing the files to the disc they were saved to the desktop as an image file.

Troubleshooting prompted me to uninstall the Windows XP Service Pack 3 (which the computer had just updated to).

Now neither of my drives (one being a burner, the other just a simple cd drive) recognize it when i insert a disk. They seem to start to read the disc, but then nothing happens - no prompts to open folders or anything. Likewise, when i attempt to burn something, I'm left with the initial problem of only being able to create an image file.

Anybody have any experience or info they can impart?

Do the drives appear in Device Manager?

Go Start > Run > type 'devmgmt.msc', and look for the drives. Do the drives have any warnings with them?

yes, both drives appear in the Manager, and neither of them have any warnings attached - for all appearances they should be working properly

You could try manually assigning it a disk letter.

To assign a drive letter to a drive, a partition, or a volume, follow these steps:

1. Log on as Administrator or as a member of the Administrators group.
2. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Performance and Maintenance. (If you do not see Performance and Maintenance, go to step 3. Performance and Maintenance appears in Control Panel only if you use Category view. If you use Classic view, Performance and Maintenance does not appear.)
3. Click Administrative Tools, double-click Computer Management, and then click Disk Management in the left pane.
4. Right-click the drive, the partition, the logical drive, or the volume that you want to assign a drive letter to, and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths.
5. Click Add.
6. Click Assign the following drive letter if it is not already selected, and then either accept the default drive letter or click the drive letter that you want to use.
7. Click OK.

The drive letter is assigned to the drive, to the partition, or to the volume that you specified, and then that drive letter appears in the appropriate drive, partition, or volume in the Disk Management tool.