I want to record myself reading a story and put it on a cd to send to my grandchildren

who knows ?---who cares?
this would be a private arrangement in the obama family
what do you want to know for ?

Are you closing the disc? If so are you using CRD or CRDW. If you are using CDRW it will not burn in the proper output format. If you use CDR only it should. Also try recording at a slower speed. It has helped me in the past to do so.
A great program to try is CDBurnerXP, and it's free. After you record it then put it back in and run it again, but this time just select "Disc" then from the drop down menu Disc Information [CTRL+I] and read what format you ended up with. Remove that and check a store bought disc and compare.

CDBurnerXP Free CD and DVD burning software

Dirty lens or dead laser diode.

If still the CD Drive cannot read the Disc then you should another CD Drive if this game is still working or read. CD Games Disc cannot be easily damage or broke even you keep it in a long years.
Try another CD/DVD Drive to run the game or Use another Computer to see it is still work.
Good luck!

Hello,

I use www.mygrandchild.com to record a story for my grandchild.

You can find there about 20 books with the pictures and texts.

The grandkids love it.

Good Luck!

You have a damaged read laser. You can either send your unit in for service, if it is under warranty or replace it.

make sure that you change the bit rate of the file to 16 bit cd audio, then you can write it

I think that, considering that is brand new and under warranty, why bother with messin' inside system with risk of loosing warranty.