Windows 7 does not recognize cd/dvd drive. Will not burn a disc

Question

           In November 2013, I  bought a refurbished hp Compaq 7900 convertible minitower, Product No. NJ3226UC#ABA, 32-bit.  Windows 7 and WMP 12 were installed by the company that refurbished it.   WMP's  play, rip, burn, sync worked perfectly.
           I made the mistake of installing itunes.  I purchased music and made a playlist from my library and itunes.  I tried to burn the playlist with Memorex discs.  WMP burn would kick out the cd at 99% complete.  I tried a different brand of disc and had the same  problem.  The message each time was 'Windows Media Player Encountered an error while burning. Verify that the burner is connected properly and that the disc is clean and not damaged.'  I tried burning a disc using itunes burner but it didn't do anything.
           First, I removed every Apple application from my computer.  Then I ran Microsoft CD/DVD trouble shooter.  It didn't correct the problem and gave me the message "cannot locate CD/DVD burner".  I ran trouble shooter in the Control  Panel selected System Security's, Find and Fix. Then Selected  Configure a Device .  Results were 'Hardware may not be detected try to do what you wanted to do again' I tried 2-3 times.  WMP would not burn.  Tried Apple for help and didn't want to reinstall itunes.  I reinstalled Quick Time.   Followed Microsoft's 5-step resolutions:
          1.  Used the troubleshooter in Control Panel.                                         
          2.  Ran CD/DVD Fixit trouble shooter.
          3.  Manually fix corrupted registry.
          4.  Update or reinstall driver.
          5.  Create a sub registry key. 
I tried to burn after every step and got the same result.it burned to 99% and kicked out. I used system restore back to May 15, 2014  thaat was before installing iTunes.  No burn.   Checked  driver and response was that 'Driver is working.  No problem was found'.    Today, ran Troubleshooter in ControI Panel and this was the messsage, 'Configuration Settings May Be Incorrect'.  How do I correct  this?  Help!  What next? 

Answer 1

Hi,
You were given some very good advice on your other post.  I ran into a very similar issue when I had installed iTunes and the end result was that I had to do a factory recovery back to a day one condition. Then I had to do a slow software installation process, checking every time I had installed a third party application.  I got tripped up a couple of times but determined that I had to install iTunes before installing other CD/DVD media programs (Roxio,WMP and Cyberlink).
Do a fresh OS installation without the extra third party software and then install Imgburn.  Then use Imgburn to determine the capabilities of your optical drive and match the media specifications those detected by Imgburn to the media type that you are using. Do not use cheap media as the firmware in your optical drive may not support it. I prefer to use Verbatim media. Now see if Imgburn will burn your optical media before attempting to install iTunes and other CD/DVD optical media programs.
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Windows 7/8 UEFI/Legacy mode, MBR/GPT