IF you have the original file from Movie Maker - you can put that into Roxio. I know there are several different versions of "Roxio" - but this is how I do it on mine. I open up DVD Builder - and add the "movie". I take out the Roxio intro - drives me nuts, LOL THen I burn the "Movie Maker" slideshow to DVD. WOrks great! I love using Movie Maker - the only drawback is that it doesn't burn to DVD. WHen I create the Movie Maker project, in step 3 - Save To Computer - I choose "Other Settings" - High Quality Video (NTSC) - then I burn onto DVD, that saved project using Roxio. Hope this is clear - LOL! I am not sure it makes any sense to anyone but me?

So with the activity light coming on we now know the power is there on both drives. Normally after that period of slower flashing it would/should start to flash much quicker indicating it is reading the CD but you do not get that. Try checking the Device manager click Start click Control panel click System click Hardware click Device manager Now in this new window look for yellow exclamation or question marks. Double click on any if they are present and see what it brings up. If no yellow marks then look for and double click on DVD/CD ROM drives, click the various tabs looking for error messages or it telling you the device is working properly. When you try a CD are you using a music CD or some software program? Try a music CD then open Windows Media Player and see what happens when you try to play the music. We might be clutching at straws here but if you exhaust all avenues before spending your money on a repairman it might be worth it.

Thanks for the suggestions. Downloaded ImgBurn at MajorGeeks. It took 30 min. to burn what Win7 DVD Maker took 2 hours to do. No wonder it had a high rating. Did have to type in folder paths. Rebooted to try the new DVD. And waited, and waited, for the directory to appear. Explorer had froze and had to use Task Manager to exit. (same problem with the DVD burned with WinDVDMaker) So my problem semms to be the DVD drive in this laptop. It plays a movie A-OK. But a DVD full of .jpg files it does not like???? (HP Pavilion dv4-2153d Notebook). Guess I need to try a CD and see if less content makes a difference?

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.