Can't use Internal & External DVD drives at the same time

System: Dell Inspiron / 9400 OS: WindowsXP MCE version 2002 SP3
Windows Explorer is where the problems appear; hopefully I can explain this so it makes sense. When I connect a USB-DVD to the system; it installs and takes the next available drive letter, usually E: I place a DVD-RW in drive E: Windows explorer will open and show the files on the DVD, so far everything is good. If I then place a DVD in the Internal DVD drive, the window for the E: drive closes and refreshes to show the D: drive files
Using My Computer to look at the drives, it will show both drives in the list BUT only the last accessed drive has Total Size and Free Space listed, when I try to access the D: drive from My Computer, it closes the E drive window and displays the files; if I go back and select E and then return to D it will not show files until I eject and insert the DVD again, then it closes the window for E and displays only the files on D.
So, basically I can only use one drive at a time.
Device Manager show the drives as being at
internal = LOCATION 0
external = LOCATION 0 (0)
If I press the function key (Fn-F10) to eject the internal DVD drive;
BOTH drives eject.
I've run registry checks and virus scans which found no problems.

 

try to assign another drive letter.. check out this link:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844 .. hope it helps ..

 

I've tried that, changed it to drive T:
And uninstalled both and let Windows re-detect them