Q: cd in drive but no icon on desktop

Thanks to each of you. Your comments are valid.

But it might help to understand that in this case, those errors are something like driving a car. After decades of driving (MANY decades!!), I know  enough to start the ignition if I want to get anywhere, and for the most part can access  the other features I rely on most often  . . . but know nothing about what goes  on under the  hood and generally don't care as long as there are service providers and an AAA office nearby.

Luckily, though not quite as long, my Mac experience is a little better. After watching our two sons get hooked on the old BBs, we bought them an Apple Plus to share, before getting the older one an Apple 2GS, thinking it would be the perfect gift  when he graduated from high school and was about to embark on college. Instead, he was crestfallen. It seems he had seen a brand new car parked around the corner in front of a friend's house and thought we were hiding it there for him.

Meanwhile, I was typing up newsletters on a wide carriage Brothers machine for a volunteer organization when the husbands of a couple of members who had seen the  newsletters contacted me, encouraging me to switch to a Mac. Heeding their advice, I took a huge gulp and spent more than $2,500 on a Mac Classic (with 128K of memory).

The rest is history. I've lost track of how many Macs I've bought (new) since then — teaching myself enough to get by and troubleshoot, without spending a lot of time exploring  features  I don't really need to use.

Like the Mac Pad mini I bought last summer, the iMac was another example of what happens when I buy stuff on impulse. I thought I had a good excuse for  making the purchase, but only used it less than a half dozen times immediately after loading it with the third party software I regularly used at that time. As I explained in an earlier message, after that, from 2002 to 2014, I only used it one more time (in 2010), to transfer and store files from another desktop Mac  on which (if I remember correctly)  the CD tray was about to die. Thinking back to that event just reminded me that in those days,  each time I bought a new Mac, I usually tried to keep the either as a backup (if it till had any life in it) or as storage — so it probably was the PC 4G I was using  before switching to my first iMac (my current backup). If so, I also had kept OS 9.6 (?) on it,  in order to access older files (some dating back to the late 1990s).

Since I never bothered to inspect the files after they were loaded, it never occurred to me until this week that most of them would be useless, since within about 10 days of my purchase, Apple introduced OS 10 for all its Mac products. Considering how old  most of the documents probably were by then, it's really not a loss — especially since I also had the foresight to transfer those same files from my dying 4G to my external drive. Still can't read most of them, of course, because except for a few  that I've been able to piece back together with text edit,  most show up as linux files. (Although I've seen a script for converting them, as I've already admitted, that's both above my technical skills level and way down on my "to do" list these days.

Although it seems to work perfectly (except for the ability to load and read  some — but not all CDs) my goal now is just to strip the ibook back down to the basics that were on it when I bought . . . leave the apps in place  . . . and look for a new owner. So far, I can confirm that it definitely is a 2002 vintage iBook (600 MHZ; 80 GB hard drive)  and running OS9.2 — but also  have install disks for OS 10. 2 and 10.3 provided by Apple in conjunction with their announcement of OS 10.  In addition to the preloaded  software, it now also has at least a half dozen third party software applications. Accessories include  a rarely opened, 6"-thick  storage case with more  pockets and  zippers than I can count, as well as a brand new, never used  adjustable podium pad. Haven't had a chance to test the battery yet, but do have the electrical power connector.

After scouting around the web this morning, I can see that despite it age, there's still lots of interest in this device — so much as I hate to part with it, it seems like the most practical  next step. I would, of course, feel better if I could guarantee that getting the  CD drive to read every disk  (rather than the random couple that seemed OK), but after skimming thru directions for upgrading  the firmware — for the resons mentioned at the top of this message, I think I'll pass on that.

Meanwhile, any further advice you think might be helpful would be most welcome.

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."              (Attributed to Bill Gates in 1981, though he denies it)

cs

PS: Yikes After re-reading the above, must apologize for  how long and confusing it must be. Then again, it's also how my life on a computer  feels.