If all of a sudden your Disk Burning Drive randomly disappears or fails to burn disks anymore it may not be your drive. In fact, it could be a error in your registry or a simple service has not been enabled so in order to figure this issue out follow these instructions:

In Windows XP:

• Click Start
• Then Go to RUN and in the Pop-Up Box type services.msc
• Then Scroll Down to the option that says IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service and make sure its started or restart it
• Try to burn your media again

Now if it is a registry error you have to go into your computer's registry and repair the issue.

Go here: http://support.microsoft.com/gp/cd_dvd_drive_problems and follow the steps provided.