Have multiple burners and neither are recognizing media anymore

Here goes... I have two burners installed on my pc: HP dvd740i and Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-106D Up until about 3 to 4 months ago these two burners worked flawlessly! And then almost at the exact same time - both burners now are no longer recognizing any type of blank media and often not even cd's or dvd's! I have tried asking both HP and Pioneer and many other various sites about this problem, but always seem to get the same response: "Try a different media" or "Install the current drivers" or "Make sure the cables are connected firmly." Let me save you a lot of time here: (1) I know for a fact it is not the media!!!!! (2) All connections are securely attached and correct!!! (3) I have downloaded and installed current drivers for both burners (4) I have disconnected and attempted reinstallations on both burners (5) I have uninstalled every burning application (Nero, Roxio, etc) and reinstalled only one - Nero. I don't mean to sound like I don't appreciate them for trying to help, but I am very desperately upset other this and really need some other options here!! Recently I have read on other sites about a copy-protection software called "StarForce" which is installed via different PC games!!!!!! I checked my system and sure enough this StarForce was on my PC and I immediately removed it; however, according to http://www.glop.org/starforce/remove.php removing it doesn't repair whatever damage it does to your burners!!!!!!! PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am quite desperate and would appreciate anyone out there who can recommend something to get these burners going!! As I said, I can sometimes finally get them to recognize a blank media and even (by some miracle) get them to burn one, but as far as the Dual Layer burner is concerned - It no longer will burn a dual layer at all!!!! I can't afford to buy another one and feel pretty sure there has got to be something that can be done to fix this one!!!! I leave this into your expert hands and please help me!!! Very Sincerely, Chris Hopkins