CD-RW troubles

For reasons I can't comprehend, both recorded and blank CD-RW discs seem to be invisible to my IMac G5. I pop in a blank or recorded disc, and it doesn't show up in Finder or Disk Utility. Toast may see it, but probably thinks it's blank, even if it isn't. I'll say, OK, it's blank, and try to burn a playlist to the disc with Toast. But wait, Toast now says the disc does not have enough room to burn the playlist! It's a 50-50 chance as to whether I will successfully erase the disc and be able to burn to it.

I tried using an external burner, assuming a problem with the Mac's DVD burner, and this seemed to work for a while. But after time, I had the same problem using the external burner.

Any thoughts?

Guava George

Which Mac and operating system do you have?

iMac G5
PowerMac8.2

OSX Version 10.4.11

Burner is MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-845

I take it that both of your drives support CD-RW and that you set your CD preferences in System Preferences accordingly.
Are you having trouble with any other discs?
If not, I'm wondering if perhaps you got your hands on a bad batch of CD-RW's.

The only thing in System Preferences I can find is the CD's and DVD's section, where I have it set up to open Finder when a blank CD is inserted. And a music CD should show up in Finder, even if I told the system to ignore the disc. Even if this were set up wrong, however, I don't think it would affect whether or not Disc Utility saw the disc. As far as a bad set of discs, some are old and have been written to by this very machine. Some are brand new and have also been written to. My real question, though, is why Finder and Disc Utility show no disc when Toaster sees it, and why Toaster will say the disc is blank, but then will not burn to it because it is not blank? Sometimes using Toaster to erase the disc will work at that point, sometimes not.

Here's another question. is there a brand of CD-RW that works particularly will with Macs? I currently have both Staples discs (the older ones) and SONY.

Have you tried different types of discs. For instance, cd-r or dvd-r, etc?
Have you tried repairing permissions and,or zapping the PRAM?
Have you tried cleaning your discs?
In Finder's preferences is the CD's, DVD's and iPods box checked?

Sorry so long to reply. Life got in the way.

I tried a CD-R the other day, and got a strange error. "The attempt to burn a disc failed. The device failed to calibrate the laser power level for this media." I then put the same disc in an external burner, connected to a PC, and the disc burned just fine.

I did recently succeed in burning data to DVD-R discs.

But what I really want to know - besides why I am having so much trouble with discs - is why Toast will see a disc that Finder and Disc Utility cannot, and why Toast sometimes says a disc is blank when it is not?

Finally, please let me know if one or other brand of blanks are recommended for Macs.

Oh, and today, I erased a disc with Disk Utility, which saw the "full" disc, but Finder did not see the same disc when it was blank. Toast saw the blank one, but gave me an error (which I forgot to write down) about 4/5 through the burning process. The disc is playable, but the last 20 minutes or so (of 79) are blank.

I use Taiyo Yudens.

I checked out the web site above and the company's site, and they do not seem to make CD-RW's, which are essential to me.

Do you like these because they are exceptional discs or because they work particularly well with MACS?

They are exceptional and they work well with Macs. I use them to back up my movies. By the way, did you try zapping the PRAM or repairing permissions?