I have probably the same or similar drive so decided to poke around. If you're looking in My Computer and the icon shows a disc is there you're probably OK. Holding your arrow over the Icon and seeing Free Space and Total Size as 0 bytes is normal because its blank and should still work fine. If by recognize you mean you want Windows to Tell you when you've put a disc in (and give you options as to what to do with it), try right clicking the drive icon(in My Computer),click properties, and click the auto play tab to set that up as you'd like. Interestingly auto play only had the option of blank CD as opposed to blank DVD (but still sees the disc), but don't think that's an issue as Nero asks you to pick one or the other anyway.