Other tidbits:
The dvd drive in question is shared on the network as it's the only dvd drive I have at home.
The dvd drive is a ATAPI iHAS122 C burner.
Nothing has ever been written from this DVD drive in this PC or Windows installation. So cache shouldn't be an issue.
Right click refresh in Explorer does not help.
I tried rescanning the disk from disk management and then exploring it again. Did not help.
I uninstalled the driver for the device, rebooted and tried again with the new driver that it auto installed. Still no success. I wasn't offered the ability to delete the driver.
I tried updating the driver. "The best drivers for your device are already installed".
The drive itself is fully functional and I'm able to copy the contents of one dvd per one reboot.
I tried ejecting the drive and reinserting it. No joy.