Sony CD/DVD drive not working properly in PC

[Viper_Larry]

Not sure if there's any more anyone can add, but I've spent a while trying to get a CD/DVD drive working on a friends PC - remotely. It wasn't listed in Device Manager. It's a SONY DVD RW DRU-190A

Here's the things I tried:

1) Ran the MS fix (registry) and that recovered the drive so now visible in My Computer. Also cleaned the Registry with Ccleaner.
2) Inserted a CD which it could see (Album name and tracks) but none of them would play in WMP or Real Player
3) Software CD inserted - could not read contents, but CD fine on laptop
4) Tried a firmware update, but the program would not update the Sony firmware asking to contact Vendor
5) In a CMD window, D: reports 'The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error'

So, although I recovered the CD drive as a device, it still can't be used. It turns out this is the 3rd CD drive they've put in the computer as the first one developed the same problem, so did the second. This would hint to me as a BIOS problem?

Any ideas or thoughts?

[Road2Ruin]

Have you tried the DVD rom in another computer to identify whether it actually does work? If it does then try connecting it via a different port in the PC to eliminate that. If it is a PATA drive then make sure it is set up as slave if it is sharing a port.