I am using Norton Ghost v9 with all relevant updates on an XP Home SP2 machine. (I installed SP2 after I installed Norton Ghost.) I haven't changed anything since I last imaged my drive but now the option to save the image to my DVD drive is no longer present -- only Local File and Network file. If I enter the drive letter of my DVD burner I get the error message that I ought to have selected the DVD drive option, but given that it is non-existent ...

My DVD drive appears normally in Explorer, Nero recognises it and movies  play OK.

I have no idea what I did between a month ago when it was working fine and  now.

Walterone, if you have the option of doing so, you'll find it much faster to write the Ghost 9.0 image to a hard disk drive and then subsequently burn the image files to a DVD using your favorite recording utility (e.g., Sonic RecordNow!).  This two-step process is considerably faster than directly writing a Ghost 9.0 image to DVD discs.

I understand that my comments do not solve your problem, but they may circumvent your problem.

Alternatively, you can consider restoring your system to the point in time where you DVD drive was recognized (since you have the Ghost 9.0 backup), and seek to determine what has changed.  Of course, be sure to create and verify an image of your current system before proceeding in this manner.