"I do have a feeling in your case that you should try a firewire connection, rather than USB as you need power out through the connecting cable to your burner I suspect and usb, as LOTR explained, on older macs is pretty useless when power is required"

how do i switch to a firewire connection? do i have to contact my internet company?
thanks for all your help everyone...as stated before, i'm pretty useless in this department.