PC won't recognize any media that I put into my DVD & DVD-RW drives until...

My PC won't recognize any media that I put into my DVD & DVD-RW drives.

They are some hand-me-downs from friends and I'm wondering if I did something weird when I installed them.

The only way I can get the computer to recognize the media is to go into the Properties for each drive and click "Populate" in the Volumes tab. Then I can double click the drive icon and go about my business.

I've downloaded all the latest firmware updates (thatI know of) and un/re-installed the drives. The problem still exists.

I guess I can live with this if I HAD to but it makes doing anything I do with those drives very tedious.

The drives & computer in question are:
SONY DDU1615 (Master)
PIONEER DVR-112D (Slave)
DELL DIMENSION 8100