I have had a few problems with writer it was stopping half way, then it was said another application may have caused that. Well I restored pc to earlier time, then lost my driver, so writer is now totally useless, please help with any info or repair

What OS are you using? XP should be able to use the CD burner by default, but ME will require the driver. (I'm assuming by "restore" you used the Windows System Restore).

Have you tried the CD maker's web site? Best place to get new drivers. If it's outdated, you might have to do a web search for the driver.

I am using windows xp, my d drive has totally dissapeared, yes i usd restore system but stil no good. I have nero cd writer, do you think maybe i should re install nero???
Thank for your help

Installing Nero won't help; that's just the burning program. The problem sounds like XP can't see the CD drive. Is it missing from My Computer? You might try running the "Add New Hardware" wizard and see if anything happens. Also check the Device Manager to see if there's a problem w/ the CD drive. (Right-click on My Computer, goto Properties, choose Hardware, then Device Manager). If there's an error, you'll probably see a yellow "splat" on a device. Let us know what you find.

You still might want to see if there's new drivers from the CD maker's site.

Thanks for the quick reply, I certainly have a yellow splat, although my writer is working when I insert a audio cd.
So what could do to fix it.
thanks again

This is the message that came up when I used add new hardware wizard---
Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)

First, go to Device Manager, click on the CD drive and choose delete it. Reboot the system and see if it finds it okay; you may have to check Device Manager again.

Regarding the error message, what brand is your CD drive? Is this a brand-name computer or a custom build? If it's brand name, then I'd recommend going to the computer company's web site and see if they have CDROM drivers. Otherwise you'll need to get new drivers from the CD maker.

It's possible that the drivers got messed up when you did the system restore. If that's the case, then you will have to manually reinstall the drivers. That's why I keep recommending getting the drivers.

I did all the above, have diks ms-dos cd-rom extensions with device driver, will I need to delete/uninstall the cd rom drives and the IDE ata/atapi controllers first???
Then insert the disk and click on install, I have an Optima computer.
I appreciated all the help you have given, so thanks