I don't seem to be able to read some CD-RW discs written by one of my laptops on another laptop. I suspect the originating laptop may have a formatting problem but I can't work out how to reformat CD-RW discs. Both laptops are suing XP-Professional. Can anyone advise please?

Most often this is caused by the CD not having been finalized, Yes, a CDRW can be formatted/erased several times.

Thank you, but how do I reformat? I can't find a format command as was the case in earlier Op systems.

It's been awhile since I have done that. Simply erasing the disc usually accomplishes what I need to do. Erase it first then, in Windows Explorer, right-click on the drive that the black CDRW is in and select Format.

Right click on the drive in windows explorer and choose erase

When I right click on the CD drive I do not get an option to erase. I'm using Windows XP Professional version 5.1 service pack 3.

What optionis do you have?

Make sure the disk is RW, either cd-rw or dvd-rw

The disk has to be rewritable