Blank disks not detected in drive?

Hey i have a Toshiba Qosmio F20 windows xp 32bit.

with a Toshiba SD-R2412.

i have been ripping and burning disks on my laptop for a long time. now suddenly my drive does not even detect a blank disk in the drive although it detects disks with media both DVD and CD.

i have tried different brands both "r" and "r-w"

none of my DVD programs can see a disk in the drive, the programs i have are "clone dvd" "dvd fab8" "DVD-shrink" " DVD decrypter"

I have tried uninstalling the drive and restarting the computer.

I have made sure the "enable CD recording" box

I can not do a system restore because i had a virus which wiped all my old restore points.

I have scanned my drive with "super antispyware" and malwear bytes"

I have checked that all my drivers are up to date with advanced system care pro, uni blue driver scanner and driver robot,

I have attempted to update my firmware on my dvd drive, when i try to run it it says "Target cd-drive not found"

also when i open itunes it says "the regestry settings used by the itunes drivers for importing and burning DVDS and CDs are missing"

PLEASE if you can think of ANYTHING that may help. I have read around and people with this problem have given up and gotten a new drive and the problem has still remained.

THANKS IN ADVANCE