The Operating System I am on is Windows XP Home Edition

Hello everyone, I'm not very good with computers so please excuse if I don't know the proper terms and whatnot. I've had this computer for nearly a year, but I have never tried to write a DVD on it. It does have a DVD player and a DVD writer built into it. The DVD player is working fine, however the writer is not working at all. When I click and open "My Computer", The DVD player (D Drive) will show up and work fine. The DVD writer doesn't show up at all under My Computer. I think it would be the E Drive if it did, but right now, only A, C, and D drives are showing.

Any help at all will be greatly appreciated, Thanks

The DVD writer I am using is: LG 4160B DVD -R/+R Dual Layer Writer

Welcome to PCHF PCNoob.

The DVD writer wouldn't show up as a separate drive. The "writing" part is utilized by the software you use to burn DVD's - for instance Nero, by Ahead software will recognize the fact that your drive is a "writer" and use it accordingly. There are lots of other DVD writing software packages - choose one and get burning!!

Thanks a lot for the quick reply, but I have another question.

Say I have some videos on a CD-RW Disc. If I put that into the DVD player, can I copy it directly onto a blank DVD-R in the DVD Writer drive or would the files need to be put onto the hard drive before burning?

"on-the-fly" burning is certainly possible if your drives are setup correctly and can actually do it. Personally, I like to save to the hard drive and then copy...it's up to you.

Thanks again, and I'm going to try that now...

Well, it didn't work :-(

It would be really great if someone could give me a brief walkthrough (or a link to one) on how to burn a dvd using Nero. Then I could identifty where the problem is happening easier.

Thanks