[smokinsec]

In the past week my I - Mac developed a strange problem when burning cd's on my I-tunes...

It burns cd's that will play on my I-mac and other computers (or so they said today at the Apple Store). They will also play on my Discman. They WON'T play on my regular cd player (Cambridge Audio... mid-upper line model) or on my wife's cheap component system's cd player.

I took it to the Genius Bar at my local Apple Store and they claimed they couldn't find anything wrong. They suggested either slowing down the writing speed or trying using different cd's.... Both of which they did there at the store. When I got home, none of the cd's they burned there would play on either my or my wife's cd players.

Up until a week ago, I had no problem playing any cd's I burned on either of those cd players.

My first tip off to a problem came when I got a message saying "System Write Error". That happened twice and the burns were unable to be completed. That has not happened since then, but the problem I describe above took its place.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance

[THX1136]

What kind of blanks are you using? How old are the players you are playing them back in? This may not be related, but older players are a toss-up in my experience. I have 2 Sony's - the newer one is designed to play back CD-Rs; the older one is not. I have been able to get the older one to play back discs I've burned - but not consistently. The newer player has no problems whatsoever.

I've gotten hearsay evidence from other folks that claim the quality of the blanks will make a difference. I cannot vouch for that through experience. Taiyo Yuden are regarded as the best blanks available while Memorex are at the bottom of the pile. I've personally used blanks from Sony, HP, Memorex and TDK. The Sony's were somewhat unreliable burn wise, but all brands have played back well in the player designed for CD-Rs while being a inconsistent in the older player. It's possible you've gotten a bad batch of CD-Rs if the ones that fail are from a new spindle. It does happen.

I can't burn discs in iTunes (9.2.1 doesn't even have any indication it can do so) so I use Toast. In Toast I can verify a burn. My memory on older versions of iTunes is a bit foggy. Does iTunes allow you to verify? Do you? If a disc passes verification it would seem logical that the players are at fault and not iTunes.

I know this isn't much help specifically, but hopefully it gives you another place to start checking for possible causes.