PowerPC :: "DVD Player Not Found" / But Will Play Cd's (iBook)

my white iBook says I don't have a DVD player. I am sure that I do, I just looked. There it is again, it's the tray-load version. It plays burned cd's. Basically what I have is a white iBook, 800 processor, 384 sd-ram, OSX 10.4.11, and it was a gift from my brother in law, a film editor. So it has iMovie, Final Cut Pro, and other film/graphics programs on it. I was told it would burn cd's and dvd's, but the iBook tells me that it will not. I think it used to, because he needed this feature for his work, and he would have gone to any expense to have it. (If not burn dvd's, at least to play them back.)

Basically, I can play any burned audio cd, or factory cd, but any Burn program I download says "no suitable burner found".. fine enough, but when I look in Applications I see a DVD file, I open it, and there is the DVD corporate logo, with details about a 26-something megabyte file; but then, a warning/error box pops up with of initialization error ( #70012- A Valid Drive could not be found"). If I open Disk Utility, and then Disk Permissions, I see that the only hardware listed is the hard drive (30 gig), and a CD-rom player (made by LG); also, the fields opposite that are blank, and the options for 'repairing permissions" or verifying permissions, or "repairing disk" are in light grey, that is, Un-select-able. So, it appears that all is fine, so far as the laptop is concerned. (the First Aid tab is selected) I have got a lot of music dvd's, and movie dvd's (all burned-- this is mexico, remember!) and so far it only will play a CD-rom. I have put a factory movie DVD in; but with no luck.

(no disc icon pops up on the screen, and there is no function). So, to review, the machine tells me that I have NO CD burner, though the former owner burned cd's. The machine has a DVD program in Utilities,
though it gives me an initialization error. But in Disk Utilities, there is only listed a CD-rom player (no CD-DVD) as hardware. It will play a cd-rom.

The name on the computer was changed from his name to mine, when he gave it to me; is it possible that some hardware or software still has his name on it? So far as I can tell, it's all in my name, or Admin. The DVD program in Utilities used the name 'System" as the owner. I unlocked all the other stuff. It's all read/write, according to the program.