[QUOTE=Glasspolish;2584985]Thanks for the reply and welcome,geno. Sounds like you’re saying the CD-Rs of today aren’t the same as the older ones. Poor quality ? Almost a different format ?
Might it be possible to get (notice I said might) around these problems with a newer burner and OS ? Thanks again.
Alan[/QUOTE]
Recent media have not a different format, but they use a different dye so the burner must use different laser power. Every media use a slightly different dye, so it is necessary a different writing strategy for every disc.
Old drives doesn’t contain writing strategies for discs manufactured in more recent times, so they usually doesn’t support correctly newest media.
It is not necessary to change operative system, but you need a more recent burner if a firmware update is not available to cope with the most recent media 
The only alternative is to find older media, but it is very difficult, and also risky because you can get ugly discs (for example if these were badly stored) or higher prices.
A new burner is certainly the cheapest solution 