I think it's a decent burner, and you normally can get for a very good price. I've seen it as low for as little, I believe, as $59 USA. I've had no problems with it so far.
You can check out this
link at cdrlabs for a somewhat informative thread on the drive.
Regarding DVD-R/RW media, the problem you're having is -- if I understand what you've said -- because the drive only writes to DVD+R/RW media. It will, of course, read DVD-R/RW media.