I just came across the same (or very similer) situation on my Dell Inspiron which has a NEC 4x DVD+R/RW/CD-R/RW drive in it.
Went to burn a CD and nero told me that I wasn't using a CD-R.. .Tried another.. Same deal... Another from the middle of the spool...Same thing! I even used a different brand CD-R and it gave the same error.
I think this is the first time in almost a year that I'm burning a CD. I've never had trouble with DVDs in the past...
Dell had me Upgrade the firmware on the drive, the BIOS on the machine and even create a new user account to see if it was a problem in my profile, but the issue persisted. They're sending me a new drive which should get here during the week. I'll update the board when I get the new drive and let everyone know if it was an issue with the drive itself.
I have Alcohol 120% on the system as well as Nero. Other programs I run that may make changes to my system: Microsoft AntiSpyware, Spybot S&D, Ad-Aware, VMWare, and Registry Mechanic.
Other DVD/CD Software: DVD Decryptor, InstantCopy, DVD Shrink, WinDVD,
Curious if anybody else affected has the same or similar software that could lead to the issue. It does seem more like a software-caused error, especially if replacing the drive has worked for some people.