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I’ll look into that Big Al. Thanks for the link. My wife’s burner came with Nero and she likes that a lot.Her computer is a 98 machine. I have no experience with it other than installing it for her. I tried it long ago and didn’t care for it. I was thinking about giving Nero a try again. Like most other people I have had my share of problems with Roxio. But the ver6 I use has worked well up to now.

Well now here is an update. I decided to take off SR2 just to check things out. I figured I can always put it back on. But just as I was about to do that, I decided to give the burner one more try. And the drive saw the blank CD. I then closed the burning program, opened the drive and tried it again. This time the blank CD was not seen in the burning software. I tried it twice more. On the third try, it again saw the blank CD. So now I doubt SR2 is the culprit. I suspect either the drive or the burning software which I did remove and re-install.

I went through the support thing for email support and they asked for a credit card to charge me $59. I don’t think it is worth $59.00. I have never needed Microsoft to fix things before so whether or not they only “fix” SR2 is kind of irrelevant as far as I can see. But I do appreciate your suggestions and help. I am going to take off SR2 and see if that fixes the problem. If it does, I will have a valid reason to try to get MS to fix it free. If not, I probably need a new drive. It won’t cost me money to try that.

That is interesting. I wonder if it applies? I clicked around the microsoft site and could only find a place where they want around $60 for support. I will just uninstall SR2. That is much cheaper than paying for something that might not work. Thanks for your help though. I think the best option is an uninstall at this point. I don’t know why in the world I keep doing silly things like upgrading anyway. This confirms my contention that if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.

Yes I did Joe. I even changed cables. Thanks.

I had gone to that page Skitterbug. Thanks for the link. Thanks Al. I am thinking that if it is hardware it could be a laser gone bad? I think a different laser is used for CD and DVD. Maybe the CD one went bad. Thanks again.

I gave the tech support a try first thing but the 1 year old drive is way obsolete and no support is available. NEC sold out to Sony on optical drives. And Sony only supports the new modern drives. Kind of funny.

Other than what I mentioned about trying a blank dvd, many cd-r’s, and reading a data cd, no. What diagnostics can I do? A bad drive did cross my mind, but that it recognizes a blank DVD puzzles me if the drive is bad. But I’ll try any suggestions you have Al. Thanks.

A few years ago one of the computers on my home network suddenly lost internet access. The other computers worked fine. I turned off my McAfee Firewall program, checked all the settings and generally had a bad day trying to get back on line. I tried everything. Finally gave up and called my IP provider. After trying this and that and the other thing he asked me to remove McAfee. I harrumped that I had shut it off. But to humor him I uninstalled it. Bingo, I was back on line. It seems that McAfee had updated itself and decided to protect me to the ultimate by shutting off my internet access. Turning it off didn’t help. Needless to say I don’t use McAfee products any more. Just my two cents.

Are the workgroup names the same on the new computer as on the others?

As one who has gone through a similar experience, I suggest you call your internet provider first. By all means try the rebooting of modems, computers, routers ect. But then call your provider. I had a similar problem that I worked on for a couple months. I took all the advice I recieved here and tried everything. It turned out that my provider had changed some setup numbers without telling anyone. After I entered the new DNS numbers, I was all fixed and months of work and fixing this and that was all for nothing. it’s worth a try.

Thank you Leif, I will check those links.

Hi skitterbug,
Thanks for the advice. I am interested that you have a number of hits daily. Do you mean someone trying to hack into your computer? Do you have a router that they are able to get past? I am curious how these hits are occuring and how you know about them. I still haven’t figured out how the firewalls work. I know they can block all incoming and outgoing traffic. They are great at that when I try to use them. Then one has no internet. So one tells the firewall, let me have traffic in for web browsing and email retrieval. And let me have traffic out for email and web browsing. Now do I tell tell the firewall to only let good stuff in and out, not the bad stuff? Will the firewall will know the difference? I can see how it can block unused ports but how can it protect through the ports one has told it to allow traffic in and out? I am just not getting this at all. And would a firewall have stopped the type of attack I suffered when I was browsing or would it have let the page come through and execute whatever script it was that got me? Everyone is being a little to quiet on this subject except to tell me I need one. Can someone please take the time to tell me why? I do not chat nor use any message programs. I use the web and a pop email account only. And I have the router. Thanks.

Hi Waggers. I did mention my F-Prot which is a Anti-Virus program. I’ve been paying for that for around 3 years and it’s given me no problems. It may not work, but it doesn’t cause me head aches. I can scan of course and it has a resident component to keep watch. There are updates available almost daily and I update that often. I do run scans from time to time with spybot and adaware and run spyware blaster. Those programs haven’t found anything on my computers so far.
Which I think is a good thing. So it looks like all I’m missing is a firewall. And I am still not convinced those are worth the headaches they can cause. A search of the forums will show I am not alone in having problems with firewalls. But I will keep listening and reading and maybe find a reason to use one in addition to my router. Thanks for posting.

OK. Those are good points. And I have gotten lots of help from all of you in the past too. I will keep my F-Prot and Spyware Blaster. But, I don’t understand how a spyware program can protect a computer without running in the background. I know you can run adaware and spybot from time to time to see if you’re infected but that doesn’t keep the computer from getting infected does it? One thing about my True Image that I may not have made clear is that I created the image on each computer after a format and clean install of all software and setting all settings and before connecting to the internet. So I won’t be restoring any malware or virus. I do hide behind a router so I am protected to a certain extent from hackers. And I am meticulous about exchanging files, opening files, ect ect. All those “hey you gotta see this, it’s cool” files go in the trash without opening. I run Eudora email to avoid one of the biggest attractors of viruses – Outlook. And, maybe someday, if I am convinced I can do it without screwing up my computers, I may try another firewall. Microsoft