My LG-CD-RW MODEL GCE-8525B

There are things you can possbly do to resolve the issue:
1. try doing the system restore.
go to start>all programs>accessories>system tools>system restore. choose a highlighted date that you believe was a day earlier prior to the firmware update and then continue with the process. no data or document will be erase in this process only the updated installed programs will be removed. if after doing that still it will not work try doing this

Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK. Registry Editor starts.
Step 2: Delete the UpperFilters registry entry loadTOCNode(3, 'resolution'); 1. In Registry Editor, expand My Computer, and then expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. 2. Expand SYSTEM, and then expand CurrentControlSet. 3. Expand Control, and then expand Class. 4. Under Class, click {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}. 5. In the right pane (topic area), click UpperFilters.

Note An UpperFilters.bak registry entry may also appear. To delete the UpperFilters registry entry, you must click UpperFilters and not UpperFilters.bak. 6. On the Edit menu, click Delete. 7. When you receive the following message, click Yes to confirm the deletion of the UpperFilters registry entry: Are you sure you want to delete this value?The UpperFilters registry entry is removed from the {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} registry subkey.

Note Do not exit Registry Editor. You must have this program for the next step.
Step 3: Delete the LowerFilters registry entry loadTOCNode(3, 'resolution'); 1. In Registry Editor, expand My Computer, and then expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. 2. Expand SYSTEM, and then expand CurrentControlSet. 3. Expand Control, and then expand Class. 4. Under Class, click {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}. 5. In the right pane (topic area), click LowerFilters.

Note An LowerFilters.bak registry entry may also appear. To delete the LowerFilters registry entry, you must click LowerFilters and not LowerFilters.bak. 6. On the Edit menu, click Delete. 7. When you receive the following message, click Yes to confirm the deletion of the LowerFilters registry entry: Are you sure you want to delete this value?The LowerFilters registry entry is removed from the {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} registry subkey. 8. Exit Registry Editor.

you can also try this: uninstall the driver. before doing it try to download the driver first

Upgrading firmware can be very simple or completely wreck a drive. If the process is interrupted whilst upgrading it can become corrupt and goodbye drive. Even something as simple as a screen saver enabling during upgrade can cause problems. No programs are supposed to be running in the background and basically no mouse movements or keyboard activity should take place until the upgrade is finished. You could try upgrading again but only if Windows can see the drive. You say the writer doesn't work, do you mean Windows recognizes the drive but you can't write a disk or it just won't show up on My Computer? Another thing, wherever your son got the upgrade from it may have been corrupted during download and sad to say some lunatics actually write upgrades to purposely wreck drives. So unless you can get windows to recognize the drive it's time to buy a new one and maybe a new son at the same time :-) BMW

Which OS do you use for your PC (Win98, Winxp etc..) ? Which exactly firmwaer (or you mean software) did your son upgraded ?