"Coho, it just seems strange that both of your computers would have this problem at the same time, and since the CDs work ok it just seems to point to the DVDs as the problem. I have found that some of the blank cheaper brands of DVDs do seem to have a higher failure rate when they get older. I no longer store anything that I want to keep only on DVDs, but make sure I have copies on external hard drives." As do I. I would much rather send a DVD to Alaska family than my external drve. Guess will reinstall Windows in about 2 weeks unless someone comes up with a better way. Thanks

Cool, I got Debian installed and I am posting this from my laptop. Got wi-fi working. Got a new battery. Got a DVD Drive. I am officially mobile. It was alful getting the display drivers and wi-fi card to work. And I still don't trust the display drivers. I get blank screens. But I sure have learned a lot about finding my way around using only the command line interface. Now to see what this thing will do. It runs a lot better than when it had XP on it. A lot faster. I just may become a Linux convert. Pooh Bear IBM Thinkpad T22 900Mhz processor 512 MB RAM

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?

Just speaking from my own experience, not claiming a lot of computer knowledge. I have a Compaq Desktop with XP which came equiped with a CD/DVD reader/writer that went bad. I recently bought an HP dvd 1040 external CD/DVD reader writer. It connects via USB and is working great with the Sonic hardware that came installed on my computer. The Nero software that came with the burner wouldn't work. That may be because of the other software that was installed, as I said, I'm not super computer savvy and didn't want to open the case or do a lot of messing around with installed software which I was afraid would leave me worse off than before. The system I now have works great for backing up files, reading DVDs and reading and writing CDs. It takes only a minimal amt of space on my desk as it comes with a stand which allows the unit to be set on it's side.