I have an EMachine 700ir with a Samsung SW-208B CD-R/RW
The PC came with Adaptec CD Creator (Lite version which requires an upgrade to burn Vcd's)I've never had a problem copying or creating CD's with this setup. I downloaded a demo version of NERO and this goes through all the motions of burning the VCD but the CDR ends up not working and unusable (No errors reported during the process). The same thing happens with Pinnacle Studio 8. At this stage I have a stack of un usable CDr's. Does anyone have any suggestions? (Short of dumping the Emachine).

Well, it's not clear where the problem is. Are you trying to play these VCDs on a standalone DVD player or are they failing to play on your PC? Some DVD players did not support burnable media, although that seems to be changing. There were some models that didn't play VCD at all on any media. I remember that Toshiba made a few of those. You could check the DVD Player Compatibility List at http://www.vcdhelp.com and see what it says. If the problem is that your PC won't play them, maybe your burner is bad. Can you burn a data CD and is it OK? What software are you using to try to play the VCDs? Are you sure it's OK?

Thanks for esponding.
The CD Burner definately works OK, I've used it with Adaptec CD Creator to copy and create CD's, Adaptec however doesn't have the facility to burn Vcd's as it's the lite version. I installed the Demo version of Nero to try burning Vcd's, this went through the motions but after reporting that the CD was burned successfully, I found that there was nothing on the disk. I tried playing the disk on my Standalone DVD player (Don't have a DVD player in my PC)which is definately CDR compatible, and also supposed to be Vcd compatible, but it wouldn't work. I checked out the disk using Windows explorer and there is nothing on it (However If I tried burning on to this CDR again I get a non blank CDR error, so something is happening). I moved on from Nero and installed Pinnacle Studio 8 but I have exactly the same problem. I copied a Project on to a disk and gave it to a work collegue who also has Pinnacle 8 and he was able to create the Vcd without any problem (Burned the disk using Pinnacle 8). If I check out this disk with windows explorer I can see 4 directories (One called VCD).
So, my problem seems to be PC related, I've wondered if my CD Burner (Samsung SW 208B) supports VCD formats but I assume this is unlikely, I haven't had much success trying to find out. Or is there something I should do to get Pinnacle/Nero to communicate properly with the CD Burner?