My hardware: brand-new Dell Inspiron 6400 with Vista and Roxio Creator 9
My problem: burning to a CD-RW with stuff already on it from a different computer
I tried to add a PowerPoint file to the CD-RW. An error message kept popping up telling me to insert a blank CD, and the CD drawer opened up. But I did not want to use a blank CD, I wanted to add to the used CD-RW.

Stupid question #1: should I be using a DVD?
Stupid question #2: can somebody out there walk me through the process using a CD?

I am a techno-infant. Please be gentle.

Hello,
Are you using the data feature within EMC9?
If so, there should be a function where it'll let you load sessions from the CD-RW.

Try this:
1. Insert the CD-RW into the system.
2. Make sure the system sees and you can open the disc from Windows Explorer and view the files that are already on the system.
3. Then, launch EMC9's data burning feature.
4. Which then, it should load the CD-RW and lets you see the files on the disc.
5. If all of the above are successful, then you can add new data/files to the CD-RW.
6. Then burn.

Personaly, I always use new single write CDs, since they aren't expensive these days.

That will work only if the original CD was written using Sessions and the disc has not been Finalized.

I suspect it might be written with a Packet Writer and then it simply is not going to work!

One thing you can try is to use the Disc & Device utility in Roxio to examine the disc and see what it reports. That will tell us a lot.

To work with Optical media you are going to have to learn the rules that apply. Anything you have learned about using magnetic media has no place with Optical media!

Also, RW media is life limited and has a pretty short life. If your data is important, use R media.