this isnt totally related to DV but it has been adversly effecting my videos lately...

my powerbook is no longer recognizing blank cd-r's as of last week. iTunes nor the finder recognize when a blank disc is inserted and its troubling to say the least since i cannot burn cds.

i know with my pc i could just select the drive and re-enable the recording setting but I am still pretty new to macs.. can anyone suggest a cure?

jr

First thing to try is to repair permissions using the Disk Utility found in your Applications/Utilities folder.

If you have been recording a lot you might want to clean your drive some way...

How old is the PowerBook? Which model PB is it? Have you tried any other burning software such as Toast? Is the drive recognized in Apple System Profiler?

it is a titanium powerbook, maybe almost 2 years old.
in the disk utility, when i click on my harddrive it says it has read/write capacity but that is the only drive i see listed.... should there be somehting else?

Your hard drive is not the CD burner. Go to Apple Menu>About this Mac>More Info>Hardware>ATA Then in the list on the right (you may have to click on the arrows) you should see your CD drive listed. If not you may have a dead drive, or connection problem between the drive and bus. If the drive is listed you may have a dirty lens, it could be out of alignment, or it might even be the brand of blank discs you're using.

I had asimilar thing happen to my desktop drive (twice actually) if you have apple care they're usually pretty good about getting everything fixed for you, if you don't they're still good aboutit it just costs money.

You could get an external burner for less than the cost of a repair, but it obviously won't be as convenient as a built in burner.