Gregdell,

 

There have been literally tens of issues reported with this particular make and model - do a search on this forum.

 

Your choices are: get it replaced (with a different model) if still under warranty, or replace it yourself if your warranty is out.

 

I had one myself and I had it replaced under warranty after making countless coasters and wasting hours trying to troubleshoot the problem.

 

GG

DELL shipped me a different model (H21N) of same brand (HL-DS) 16X DVD RW and it worked fine out of the box.  Thanks for the help!