By saying your hardware is "not compatible", you're jumping to conclusions, which can make it very difficult to help you. It sounds instead like you are simply experiencing software problems.

First, I'd recommend that you ensure Recording is enabled for the Optical Drive. Note the Windows' built in CD writing software doesn't support DVD media, so even if it is enabled and you attempt to burn a DVD, you will get errors trying.

• Click Start, Run and type services.msc
• Find IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service and double click on it.
• On the General tab, ensure that the Startup type is set to Manual.
• Click Ok and close Services
• Go into My Computer
• Right click on the Optical Drive that is giving you problems and click Properties
• On the Recording tab, ensure Enable CD recording on this drive is checked
• Click Ok
• Click Start, Run and type %userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\CD Burning
• Delete anything in that directory
• Make sure you have at least 1GB of free disk space

If there is no Recording tab, then Windows is not detecting that the drive is writable, which would indicate something more serious.