Being new at this, I have many questions but will start with this one: Is there a way to tell if a CD-R is blank or used by just looking at it? I've had so many CD-R's rejected (Coasters laying all around me) during the burn process that I feel that the software rejections might be faulty. Are there other ways in knowing if these blanks are still good?
Email: kapenamz@sbcglobal.net

well if you bought them blank there should be no reason that they were used...but if you have cd's laying around that you dont know if they were used u can usually tell if they were used if the surface is two different colors...(the surface where the cd is written on)...or it can be that you bought low quality cd's that can not be read...If you would like to purchase blank CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW or DVD dual layer... i know an excellent website that you can buy them from...ive been buying blank cd's and dvd's for years from them and their shipping is fast and the quality is grade A. you should check this site out... compuside.com (http://www.compuside.com)

Blazindvd.....
Thankz for the website.....No, no, these are TDK blanks that came packaged. The problem arises when I am in the process of writing during the burn and the message says that a problem has occurred. Although the CD_R has not gone through to completion, shouldn't the disc still be ok and remain blank?

If the burn was in process, and it errors out, the CD-R is trash. If the burner was writing data to the disc, and doesn't finish the write or finalize the disc, you should throw the disc away. CD-Rs are not erasable, and if it didn't finalize the session, you can't use the remaining space.

TDK CD-Rs are usually made by Ritek, and should burn reliably with most drives.

Sounds like there's a compatibility problem with your burner or software.

What software are you using, and what is the error message?
What kind of burner are you using? Does your drive show any conflicts in device manager?

If the burn was in process, and it errors out, the CD-R is trash. If the burner was writing data to the disc, and doesn't finish the write or finalize the disc, you should throw the disc away. CD-Rs are not erasable, and if it didn't finalize the session, you can't use the remaining space.

TDK CD-Rs are usually made by Ritek, and should burn reliably with most drives.

Sounds like there's a compatibility problem with your burner or software.

What software are you using, and what is the error message?
What kind of burner are you using? Does your drive show any conflicts in device manager?
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Hi NightCrawler.....in answer to your questions....

Software: Sonic RecordNow
Error Message: A problem occured while writing disc, etc.
Burner: 4x DVD+R/RW Drive ASUS CD-S480/AH in a Compaq machine
Device manager: I didn't know how to get that

After struggling with numerous tech persons, I am now up and running and able to burn CD's. Hooray.....BUT, my Drive "E" has mysteriously been changed to Drive "G" and when I insert a full CD in it, it reads as 0 bytes.

AND, somehow the empty Drive "F" (designated for burning) shows 702MB when there is nothing in the slot.

So far, this condition hasn't caused any problems in the burning process.

What do you think, NightCrawler? Thanks for you help.......