Should I try to change both IDE cables, so that primary and secondary are inverted?
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It is worth a try. Even better if you can get hold of some new IDE cables as they don't cost much. One of the wires in the cables may have become cracked or broken.

One tip. When flashing a drive they normally have to be the master drive on the channel they are connected to and also connected to the end of the IDE cable, not the connected in the middle of the cable. I've personally never had a problem flashing a drive that was setup as a slave, but it is the recommended way by NEC and a few other manufacturers.
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This is so weird. I just inverted the cables, and my optical drives are now on the primary IDE controller, and one HDD is now on the secondary IDE controller.

Now the flash of the NEC just went fine. I thought, ok, great, so it could be a controller problem then. So I tried to burn a DVD-RW, but I still get the same message with both of the drives.
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Speaking about the Windows update earlier, I remember removing Kaspersky, as it caused me headaches. I decided to install Avira Antivir, and updating Windows to use its firewall, and used a validation key. Everything worked fine so far, but that was in April, don't know if I tried to burn RWs after the update.

Anyway, I cannot do a fallback, what could be the problem in Windows that it refuses DVD drives to write RWs? Have you read anything about that?
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Virus/firewall software can cause problems with disc writing. The two common causes are as follows.

1, The scanner is actively scanning files in the background all of the time. The files to be burnt to disc are detected as trying to be accessed by the scanner and so it intercepts the access to scan the files first before allowing them to continue being accessed. This causes an error in the writing software as it cannot instantly access the files it needs to write.

2, Scheduled tasks. All scanning software needs to update and also perform complete system scans. In most packages these are set to be performed at set intervals of say 1 hour. These can activate and cause errors when trying to write a disc.

I'm not sure if either of these problems could be causing your issues though. It would be worth looking on the support forums for both makers of the scanners to see if anyone else has had similar issues.

The only other thing to try, which I know you don't really want to do, is to completely reinstall the OS again.
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So if I disconnect from the net, then disable the firewall, it should burn the discs? Or what do you mean by scanner? And what does this have to do with a Windows update?

Problem is that it only refuses to write RW discs, why does it burn other media properly?
Never in my life!!
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Why never in your life? It only takes 30 minutes to actually reinstall XP. I know it can then be a huge chore to then reinstall all the software and set everything up again, but it sometimes cannot be avoided and needs to be done sometimes.

And yes, I used the word scanner to refer to both virus scanner and firewall. Try disabling both and see if that makes any difference.

Windows Update may also have updated something relating to the abstraction layer that is used to communicate with the DVD drive and could also be causing some problem. If you have Nero installed run the info tool and see what it reports about the system and also see if it is correctly listing the drive as being able to burn RW discs.
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- I now installed the newest updates from Microsoft --> no changes
- Disabled Antivir and Firewall --> no changes

Yep, you're right, and the rest? I already takes almost 30 minutes to reconfigure and reinstall add ons for Firefox. Then installing every program again, that takes a lot of time. Windows isn't really the problem. And even then, will it work afterwards?

Do you perhaps know a place where I can confront someone with that problem, I'm not going to post it at Gamefaqs.
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reinstalling isnt that bad...I have had to do it a few times, it just means you have to do something else for a little while
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There are a few sites I use that are dedicated to CD/DVD based information that may be able to help solve the problem.

http://club.cdfreaks.com/
http://www.cdr-zone.com/forum/index.php
http://forum.videohelp.com/

The members on one of those forums should be able to suggest further ideas on how to fix it.

But, now you have your two new HDs in the system don't you have a space HD? If so you would format and install a fresh copy of Windows on the spare drive to test if it fixes the problem before you then do this with the actual drive.
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