Hi dontasciime,
I tried those drivers and after restarting, my writer dissappears ( (imgburn says no writer installed). So I just did a rollback and it reappeared.
I have gone into BIOS again and I think everything is the way I want it to be. I do not have an option for AHCI though, instead there are these options [AUTO], [CD/DVD] and [ARMD]. I have been choosing [CD/DVD].
This is verified also by the boot screen as it shows my IDE hard drives as well as the writer as an ATAPI device.
It's getting pretty late here 1:25am NZ time, so I think I'm gonna head to bed soon. Was hoping to get this sorted today... oh well Will get onto your other suggestions tomorrow though.
Many thanks to all