The dvd drive for the computer is being recognised in the device manager but has a yellow box on it, and it isnt recognised in my computer.. in the properties it said 'error code 10' so i looked it up and microsoft gave this fix

You can no longer access the CD drive or the DVD drive, or you receive an error message after you remove a CD recording program or a DVD recording program in Windows XP: "error code 31"
I followed the link and did the edit for the uppercase, but there wasnt a lowercase bit to delete... restarted the computer and the dvd drive was recognised!
it said i needed to reinstall itunes because of the registery edit.. once i reinstalled itunes, the dvd drive wouldnt recognise again...
So is it itunes causing the problem? any ideas of a fix??

try updating the firmware for the cd-rom, can usually find them at the manufacturer's web site