What is up with cd-rw dvd's drives?

Hello,

this is the second computer i have had this happen to. in "my computer" when i right click on the drives it reades no space, unallocated drive, no media, needs to be cleaned out, but hay , "it's working fine " according to device manager. upgrading driver , uninstalling, to the point i trashed a hole harddrive. garbage. it is a door stop now.

"F" drive-click on properties-file system: unknown-used space: 0bytes-free space: 0bytes-capacity: obytes. this was my dvd, now it is just a plane standered drive that does not work.

oh yes, if there is no media, why does it read disk full ?
sigh