problems burning cds in nero express

[AverageJoes]

hey -- i tried to burn a copy of a music cd today, using the oem version of nero express (one that came free with my cd-rw drive), and the cd came out messed up, on 2 separate tries. the cds would play in one of my cd players (neither worked in the computer's drive after burning), but there was all kinds of horrible clicking/distortion over the music.

the first try, i went with the default 24x write speed. the next try, i tried slowing it down to 12x, but got a "burn failure" error message shortly after starting that burn. so i upped it to 16x, the burn went through, but the disc's sound was as bad as the one at 24x.

i've used nero express lots before with no problems, and just prior to making these defective cd's, copied a bunch of .jpg files onto another cd with no problem. those files came out just fine. the source .wav files are fine as well. any idea what the problem might be, or how i can test whether my cd burner itself is the problem?

also -- is there any decent freeware cd burner software out there for win xp, in case my copy of nero is messed up?

thank you!

[mikezel]

What I would try first is to burn through WMP, so that you can see if it is a nero issue, or something bigger. If it works through WMP, try to reinstall nero and see what happens.

mike