Thanks Don, I appreciate your response.

Date:    Wed, 10 Jan 2007 12:12:39 +1000
Don Penlington wrote:

 >Has it ever on same sort of disks?  If so, when did the failure first
 >appear? Can you link this to anything such as a software/hardware crash, or
 >installing any new thing around the same time?

       My daughter gave me the burner back in 2003, I burned a music CD and
       tried to play it on the Toshiba drive without success, however, it
       would play on my Phillips DVD player in my entertainment center. It
       did not function right from the beginning and I lost interest in
       burning disks.

 >Can you right click the player icon in My Computer and open the CD in
 >explorer to view the contents?

       No.

 >Have you looked for an updated driver for the unit?  Tried removing and
 >reinstalling the unit?

        There is no driver according to toshiba.com

 >Do your burned CD's and Knoppix disks run on other computers?  You need
 >first to isolate whether it's a disk or a player problem. Are the disks you
 >are using compatible with this player? Some older players might be choosy
 >about -R or +R disks.

         I went to the library and the librarian loaded both the burner
         Verbatim disk and then the Knoppix disk; neither disc would run.
         I didn't have confidence in this trial, so I called on a friend,
         and both discs ran without hesitation on her computer. I don't
         know what you mean by -R or +R, I don't see these designations
         on any discs.

 >Have you tried burning at lower speed?

         No, these Verbatim discs were burned by a friend, some run, and
         some don't run on my Toshiba drive.

 >Since it plays some CD's OK, I'd suspect the disks rather than the player.
 >But that depends on your answer to Q1.

 >Don Penlington

         I wrote an e-mail to Toshiba tech support at toshiba.com a couple
         days ago and they have not responded, which makes me think this
         drive is a lost cause. Which brings up another question. Just what
         kind of a crap shoot are we in when buying this type of equipment
         and discs. Take the Knoppix disc, it doesn't run on two computers,
         and runs on a third machine. Is the disc faulty, or are these
         computers faulty? Are there no standards or specs for this type of
         device and discs? My drive does run OEM software, with no problem
         whatsoever. Oh well, I guess I won't be learning Linux :-).

          Thanks again,
          Walt Ezyk

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