Latitude E6400 can't burn cd's

I bought a new Latitude E6400 with vista business in march, 2009. I can't burn a cd. It will read but will not write -- usually get errors saying "cannot complete format" when I put a blank cd in.  I have the 3 yr Dell "Pro support" warranty.  I have talked with 7 different "gold techs" for a total of 19 hours on the phone.  Under their guidance, I have reinstalled vista on my original computer, had 2 replacement drives sent out, and 2 new computers sent out.  Nothing has worked. Dell said they would send me a new Latitude with windows 7 installed and then a day later broke that promise and asked if it would be OK if I went back to XP!!! I said no, and now they want to send me windows 7 and have me install it.  I suggested that a long time ago, but 2 different techs told me that if windows 7 was put on a machine originally shipped with vista, that Dell would not support it and I would have to get support from Microsoft.  I certainly don't want that as MS and Dell would spend the next 3 yrs blaming each other and I won't have a cd burner.  One of these "gold" techs talked to an Dell engineer who said that it was a known issue that vista will not allow cd burning on a latitude. (I have tried 4 other burning programs and none work) Anyone else have this problem?? Any ideas how to proceed? Will windows 7 be any better?  Will Dell support it? At least I can talk to their techs.  I am afraid if I install windows 7, techs won't talk to me about this or other problems. Help please!