Hi again Mama,

Agree with the rest of the gang...signals, GregiBoy and DaGeekster...apologies if I've left anyone out.
As I said before, I'm not sure how much time you want to or can devote to this "burner".

Based on what's occurred, I doubt very much if it will show up in device manager, but is it recognized in your bios?

If this burner is still salvagable, I think that you may have two chances left; assuming that nothing to date has worked, including DaGeekster's safe mode suggestion.
1. The EEPROM or firmware is corrupted (EEPROM = Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory...this is unique to each specific unit and most ppl do not have this backed up).
Here, I would download (new download) and install the latest firmware available for your burner...it should be available from Gateway...and keep your fingers crossed.

2. The registry is corrupted due to faulty uninstalls/installs.
You can use a patch to attempt to recover your drive.

Agree with others about backing up.
Personally, I keep a recent clone of everyone's system hdd. It seems no one else in my family will bother to do this, but since they all come to me with "Daddy, can you fix my computer?" ...insert image of 20 yo daughter batting her eyes..., I've learned my lesson. This practice has kept me from a world of pain.

Hard drives are dirt cheap and so is the software to image partitions and clone whole hdds.

Anyway, best of luck...

Here's that registry patch: