At Udo's Request, and with his help, we were able to make contact with Sony US division.
And with Chris O'Brien's help at sony, we were able to set up a test system and duplicate this error, and help to narrow down the causes and when its caused.
It is caused by our Installer program, nothing to do with Nero or InCD directly, just the install process. In the past this same installer was known to replace the Systems Lower and Upper Filter drivers that would cause the CDROM/DVDROM and Recorders to no longer show up in Explorer, and show as driver conflicts in the Device Manager.
The below solution would return the drives back to normal operation:
Open regedit and go to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
Now delete the keys:
LowerFilters and UpperFilters.
Now reboot and your optical drives should function again.
However, with the Sony Vaio Docking station attached, it is somehow corrupting the Docking stations firmware. We have not yet figured out how, as Sony and Ahead both agree it should be impossible.
We have found that this only occurs with the installers that came with Nero release from Nero 5.5.7.2 to Nero 5.5.8.4. Any releases of Nero before or after these versions would not cause this to occur. And for the Sony Docking station, it has to have firmware version AD1830 - Epson Chipset. Any other version of firmware or chipset and this would not occur, regardless of what version of Nero used.
As you can see, a very unusual bug, but a bug none the less. Sony will be sending a system with the Docking station and firmware to our Engineers in Germany in the hopes we can isloate the cause and prevent it's reoccurrance in future installers for Ahead Products.
Once this firmware has been damaged, the only solution it to reinstall the firmware for the docking station.
We are sorry for the trouble this has caused, and we will take steps to prevent any such issues in the future.
Sincerely Yours,
Craig Campbell
Ahead Software Inc
US Tech Support Manager