It's certainly worth checking your ROM BIOS setup to make sure you don't
have "not installed" selected for that drive. Some really old DVD
player/burners are very balky things to get working. On the other hand some
really old computer BIOS's don't have good support for newer devices. Do you
have any friends who would allow you to install your DVD into their systems
temporarily to see if it is really working?

These peripherals are so cheap nowadays that it might be worth it to just
buy another and forget the frustration of trying to get this one working.