Hi Daniel,
You can try one of the cleaner CD's or the can of air to try to clean the
inside of the drive.
It could be that the drive is dying. I have had three Sony drives die in the
fashion you describe.
Burning ware I like Nero or NTI. I do not know if there is any freeware
other than windows XP.
Hope this helps
Bud Jarman
The NOSPIN Group is now offering Free PC Tech
support at our newest website:
http://freepctech.com