I have been having serious problems getting my Creative burner to recognise blank media.
Creative have tried to help, but eventually gave up.
They have given me 2 replacement burners thus far.
I can read/write to my CDRW's, but the drive will not recognise CDR's.
So far I have bought 4 different makes/types of blank media, those being:-
TDK 700MB 1x-24x Certified Plus.
IBM 700MB 1x-12x.
Memorex 700MB 1x-12x.
Imation 700MB 1x-16x.

The TDK's are the only discs which I can burn to, and even that is sporadic.
Sometimes they are recognised by the drive, and others not.

I have tried everything possible on both the software and hardware sides to alleviate the problem. Does anyone know a good quality disc which will possibly work well with this burner so I am not throwing money away again trying to find something which will work consistently?

I think the problem may lie with the blank media not having a high enough contrast ratio, usually visible by the colour of the write surface, i.e. the darker the surface, the higher the ratio.

Any help would be appreciated.

I have the same problem, mostly as you say with CD-R's that have a light colour on the burn surface.
Last one's I used which worked fine were coated with a black coating and were no more expensive than normal.
Can't remember the make but I'm off to get some more tomorrow so i'll keep you posted.

Tried today - Freecom (Don't work at all)
Phillips CR-R80 16x (Don't work at all)

CD-RW 8438E

(in reply to Clan Gunn)