When inserting a blank DVD into the Optiarc BD ROM BC-5500 SATA drive on a HP Pavilion DV7-1273CL, using Windows Vista (64 bit), it will not recognize the disc.
It says drivers are up to date, but I have uninstalled and reinstalled. I've rebooted and set low and high filters in registry and rebooted.
Cgheck drive capabilities: http://www.vso-software.fr/products/inspector/inspector.php
Your drive has to WRITE particular media type to accept a blank disk. Say it would be happily reading recorded DVD-RAM-DL, while not having the writing laser for DL or -RAM.
Also speed ratings matter.
Optical drives have firmware where it stores CD and DVD types, if it is an older drive it may not have the media type for a newer brand of disc, so it cannot read it, a firmware update usually cures it, but most OEM's (especially HP) do not keep up with providing firmware updates for optical drives, check the HP website for your specific model of notebook to see if there are any firmware updates for your specific model of optical drive.
Here is an example of firmware for a Sony optical drive, as you can see the list of media types hard coded into the optical drive's firmware.
I am not saying this is your problem but is the most common issue when other reasons for it not reading new discs cannot be found.
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