DVD Drive not recognized at ALL by OS X x86, but works on PPC

[grabberslasher]

Ok, this problem has had me baffled since 10.4.1, (and heck, Darwin 8 beforehand).

 

My DVD drive (a 8x DVD±RW burner) has never worked in OS X on x86 - in fact, it does not show up in any way whatsoever, like it's not plugged in.

 

The drive works perfectly when stuck into a PowerPC Mac (even for burning discs), and it's always worked with any other OS on said PC. It can boot the bootloader on the OS X Install DVD, but then the OS hangs on "waiting for Root Device". Toast can't see it (on x86). ioreg does not show any DVD or CD drive either.

 

This problem has been here in Darwin 8.0.1, 10.4.1, 10.4.3, 10.4.4, 10.4.5, 10.4.6, 10.4.7 and 10.4.8. I'm at a loss.

 

My question is, does ANYONE have any idea as to what would cause this? Better yet, how to fix it?