I have an NEC DVD-RW ND2500A (that's not the label I bought it under, but that's what it really is.) It's supposed to read/write CDs, DVDs, DVD+Rs, and DVD-Rs. I'm basically dual booting between XP and CentOS 4. Following the recipe in "The Linux Cookbook", I tried to copy a DVD using: dd if=/dev/hdd of=/tmp/diskfile.iso then cdrecord dev=/dev/hdd fs=32m -sao -v -eject -dummy /tmp/diskfile.iso to test and cdrecord dev=/dev/hdd fs=32m -sao -v -eject /tmp/diskfile.iso to actually record. I had a lot of trouble getting a good read of the whole original DVD--it kept getting an I/O error at 94-95% of the way through. After multiple cleanings and 20-40 attempts, I finally got the whole thing copied with no reported errors. It then took me a couple of tries to get the cdrecord options right and to run as root to get the requisite priority. The "-dummy" run ran with no errors that I noticed--there was an LOT of output--and "-dummy" didn't work. It wrote to the blank DVD anyway. I then did a run without the "-dummy". Although the original will play on both my PC and the DVD player hooked to the TV, the two copied DVDs (DVD+Rs) are coasters. DURN! Any solutions, suggestions, pointers to articles I should read, etc. will be appreciated. BTW, I've never quite gotten around to playing DVDs or my music files (mp3 and Real Player .rmj files) from Linux. I'd appreciate being pointed in the direction to start. -mj-