CD-R/Rw issues

New person here!
I have a SamsungCD-R/RW SW-252F. I also have a Samsung DVD Rom SD 816B. Both of which are just over a year old.
My issue is with the CD-R/RW.
When I put a disk in the tray the light flashes 4 times and the machine "clicks" several times and then nothing. The computer doesn't recognize that a CD has been inserted. When I try to burn a CD, the computer tells me to insert a CD in the drive, however it is already there! I am using NERO and Roxio.
The only thing that happened recently is that I was using photoshop CS and Pics2exe when both of the programs froze. When I rebooted the machine, all of my Photoshop defaults had disappeared and the pics2exe program ran slowly. Just when it seemed they were back in working order I tried to burn a slideshow with music and the CD-R/Rw would not work.
I unplugged/replugged things and that didn't do anything. I ran a virus scan..nothing.
Also, the device manager says "these devices are working properly".
Hope this isn't too confusing. I am so frustrated.
Any thoughts??
Thank you!

Welcome to WD pamela .

What ver. of windows you using ?

You could try uninstalling the CD drive ;
Control Panel\System\Device Manager

and Right click on the CD-RW and hit uninstall
and have the PC restart ,
it should find it then and reinstall it ,

if that doesn't help ; uninstall Nero and then reinstall .

And then get back to us on if it worked or still having problems .

Thanks for the reply.
I am using Windows XP.
I'll try what you said and get back to you.
Thanks!

Possibly one of the drives has died and is preventing the other from working... unhook one of the drives and see if this change, if not, hook that up and unhook the other.