Last night I put a blank CD in my CD writer and tried to copy some
files to it. I got the message: 'access denied - make sure the disc is
not full or write-protected'. When I clicked on Properties, it showed
the disc as full, even though it was fresh out of the box. I tried
another new disc and got the same thing.

I'm wondering if this has anything to do with something I did
recently. I was having trouble ripping CD's to MP3 using Exact Audio
Copy (dropouts of a fraction of a second every so often), and someone
advised me to 'enable DMA', by checking the DMA box in the Control
Panel dialogue box for the writer. It made no difference to the
ripping problem so I unchecked the box again.

I'd got a message before checking that box, saying it might damage my
hardware, but like a fool I ignored it. I don't thing I've written a
CD since doing this, so it looks as though this might be what's
causing my problem.

Can anyone here suggest anything?