My new NEC 3500A is behaving the same way. I can get it to work sometimes in the older of the 2 ADS Pyro cases I have. (The older one has an internal power supply, the newer one has the external brick.) My Plextor 4824 CD-R works fine in either. The NEC behaves similar to the OP's. When I had a TDK 880n (nec 2500 re-badge), had the exact same problem, but couldn't get it to work even once in either case. I tried the uitlity in the above message, the utility ti check your current firmware just says no device found. Rescanning does nothing. (Both cases are online at the moment, newer with Plextor, older with NEC)