That's two years...this is a tough decision. She doesn't want to give up her computer. Personally, I can't recommend any of the 400.00 t0 450.00 towers that I looked at. The users of them couldn't recommend them either. I think CNET gave one budget model a rating of 7.6, while the many users collectively averaged their rating at 3.0. I did find a Vista premium HP tower for 564.00 and she's a HP fan. I dunno. Everybody's watching budgets and I don't like saddling her with an inferior product nor one that will need to be replaced within two years. Computers are investments. I sent her the HP tower link...haven't heard back. Telling her to throw away 400.00 isn't any easier than telling her to throw away 200.00. She's like me, a computer junky...which I think is cool but not easy in these times. marf

yes when it says RW it will write to it also but yes it will play them too. So the write part is the same as burn. I did get an external drive that does cd read and write and dvd read and write it has come in quite handy since I can use it on all of my computers and my new netbook which does not come with any type of cd/dvd drive, I got mine on a clearance rack at staples for very cheap. It was an older model but that did not really matter much to me for my needs and works great. Having the usb plug in makes it very simple to use. I just googled and found some external ones for under $40 with free shipping so not too bad.

Thanks for your imput Owbist and Ravencajun. I've done some more searching and finding. Appears that the LG internal DVD/CD I installed is a bit problematic. And yes, it does, sometimes anyway, recognize blank DVD. Last evening I was playing with it and inserted a blank DVD-R. It recognized it. Then I started a process to move a folder of 2+ Gb of photographs to it. At the point where it said click here to copy, I exited the process. Then the drive did not recognize the blank DVD. So, I put the DVD in my external burner, which is also an LG, and it recognized it. Rather than continue to troubleshoot and reseach ad infinitum, I'm just going to replace the drive. Again, thanks for your imput. Bob Central Arizona

Have you tried more than one CD? And more than one type? If for example you are trying a music CD now try inserting you XP operating system CD and see what pops up. Does the activity light on the front of the DVD player come on when you close the drawer with a CD inside and does the speed of the flashing increase after a few seconds of activity?