[caveman]

More laptop misery today. Every so often, I backup my images from the computer to CD and eventually DVD. I make two discs (an archive disc and a backup or working disc) and these are stored separately. The CDs are camera specific (today it was the turn of Nikon D80 Vol 21) then all the images are lumped into a folder until I have enough to fill a DVD (Digital Images Vol6 today).
I started to burn a DVD, but halfway through it failed. I thought it was the disc, but on sticking a fresh disc in, the drive doesn't see it. The computer recognises the Optical drive is there, it is just the drive which doesn't see the disc. I tried it with several, bought, CDs and DVDs but no go.
I have ordered a replacement drive from the US, so I will see how I get on fitting that. My next computer will go back to a desktop model. I could have had a replacement DVD RW tomorrow for about £15 for a desktop machine!
I have ended up using my external drive but for some reason it does not verify, though the discs produced read perfectly well.

May I refer you to ed's previous statement top of this page
good luck with it John.