Powerbook not recognising CD-Rs or DVD-Rs

Recently my Powerbook has stopped recognising CD-Rs and DVD-Rs. It recognises and plays normal CDs and DVDs perfectly. I've burnt both CDs and DVDs recently. Has anyone else had this problem?

I'm guessing it's a hardware fault, but I'd like to know before sending it for repair as I've got quite a few projects on at the moment and don't want to have to resort to my tiny Sony Vaio for Photoshop stuff if I can help it...

Thanks

Adrian

I realised I wasn't very specific about what was happening and came back to clarify, but there have already been replies. Sorry about that...

Anyway, they're blank CD-Rs and DVD-Rs - I want to burn some folders to a DVD as an archive. I put a DVD-R in the and it doesn't appear on the desktop, despite having the "CDs, DVDs and iPods" checkbox selected in the Finder preferences. The same with CD-Rs - and they don't appear in iTunes either.

I recently did a completely clean install (about a week ago) because the system was being really slow and I wanted to free up disk space by dumping a load of video editing stuff onto an external LaCie firewire drive. I might start crying if I have to do another complete reinstall because it took bloody ages!

A

Er.

You see that bit on the left that says "newbie"...?

I went into system preferences to set up a new user etc. etc. and clicked on "CD / DVD" to take a quick look. It said "do nothing" for both blank CDs and DVDs, so I changed it to "open finder" just on the offchance that it would make a difference, then stuck a DVD-R in. It showed up on the desktop.

Presumably that's by design rather than a fluke. I didn't realise "do nothing" really meant *nothing*, not even show it on the desktop...

But then I'm a newbie

Blue Velvet said:

Hope to see you at the Apple Store, Regent St.

Click to expand...

Wow. I thought you were a newbie Londoner who didn't know the difference between New Oxford Street (where Cancom is) and Regent Street, but I've just seen that there's a proper, bona fide Apple store just opened on Regent Street. There goes my bank balance.