LG DVD writer: GSA-H55L software issues.. I think :(

Hey guys I have problems please help me. I recently bought a LG Lightscribe DVD writer: GSA-H55L. I have used it a couple of times to write stuff. Then I bought a new HDD and burnt some stuff off a couple of times then i got lazy and so i stopped using the DVD writer for a while then I noticed the other day that my HDD's were abit too full so i decided to write stuff to disk. When I put a DVD-R disk into the drive my pc froze for 1 or 2 minutes then it started to respond to me again. The light on the outside of the DVD drive was flashing periodically, but it didnt sound as if the disk in the drive was spinning really fast. Normally you can hear the drive hum when it reads a disk but this time it sounded as if it was starting to spin then it slowed down and it did this the whole time the pc froze. I then checked if i could see the disk in the drive, nothing showed up!

I then proceeded to restart my pc, but the same problem occured again. Then I put in a DVDR that i had burnt previously, and pc froze for a while then started working but it still didnt read the DVDR. I then put in a CDR that i burnt previously and IT STARTED WORKING. It read the CDR and i could watch what was burnt on it! I then tried a DVDR again and nothing! Same problem! I was very frustrated at this point and decided to BURN A DVDR at any cost(I was gonna show it who was the MASTER!!!!) So i open up NERO 7(provided with DVD writer) and got some stuff to write and clicked burn, and it started to burn, I waited 12 minutes to burn and verify then i stuck the burnt DVD-R back into the drive to see what happened and still the drive refused to read the disk! I then gave the disk to a friend to see if anything was on it, he told me what was exactly written on the disk! He then proceeded to tell that windows sucks and that if i was in Linux this would not happen . I then searched the net for a solution and got more sad when I saw so many problems with this GSA-H55L drive. I uninstalled the drivers for the DVD drive then restarted my pc, Windows then detected the DVD drive and when I put in the burnt DVD disk into the drive it still couldnt read the disk. I have surmised with my meager knowledge about hardware and software that this is a software problem, but i dont know how to solve this problem!!! I downloaded a firmware update thinking that this would solve my problems then i went home and saw the readme file AND MY BRAIN FROZE FOR A MINUTE OR TWO, needless to say i have not installed/updated this new firmware. In the my lgfirmupdate folder in program files theres's a file called dummy.txt which has this on the inside:
MODEL=GSA-H55L
VER=1.04
SN=0312070C16160027
OEM=

I dont know what to do, I was thinking of calling a therapist to deal with the split personality(only reads CD, writes DVDs, doesnt read DVD's) of the DVD writer, and well to qwell my anger and to prevent me from kicking it to pieces to see if it will then work![hahaha that would be revenge ]
Please help me Oh and the DVD-R disk that i was using to write stuff to was: Everlotus, i have used this brand previously and it had worked so i dont think the brand of the DVD's are the problem