CD burner fails to pass lead-in on speeds over 8x

[Goldom]

52x max drive.. worked fine for years, but after recently reformatting my whole computer, any speed faster than 8x will cause it to sit at lead-in for ages just spinning up the drive and spinning it down again. I normally used it at 48x at max, more often 32x just for safety.. One time I actually had the patientce to let it be, and it finally started after about 15 minutes, but of course the whole burn time would still be faster with just 8x, since it starts right away! I don't know what is any different now..
all I can think is, I recently got a external DVD burner, which came with Nero 6, which, at the time, I uninstalled Nero 5.something that came with comp, and put it on, and it worked with both the new drive and the internal one. When I reinstalled everything, I put 6 directly on, never the one that came with the original drive. But I can't see why it should matter, it's not like it has a driver in it I'd be missing. (searching for new drivers, btw, is fruitless, their official site (lite-on) says to just use what windows came with).
I know it's not the media, as I've been using this spindle for ages, and I was able to burn one at max speed on the external drive. (Let me tell you, burning over a USB cable is indicitive of a panic attack watching the buffer fall to 5% every few seconds X_x but it worked)

So.. any ideas? Should I try installing Nero 5.x as well, and use it for that drive, and 6 for the other? Would it even let me have both on there? Should I revert to 5 entirely, or would that not be compatible with the DVD-r, since it came with 6? It may not be the fault of Nero at all, but it is the -only- thing that should have changed at all.. maybe my system's missing something since the reformat, but I can't think of what it would be.