What fred is saying is wrong...You can write files to a dvd and a dvd drive will read the files,and not have to be able to read dvdmovies...say you save some quicktime movies to a dvd-r disk,you would need a dvd drive and quicktime installed on the other pc,you would not need say powerdvd to read the disk. And there is no such thing as cd-r or cd+r, they are dvd-r ,dvd+r. Nor can you create a dvd on a cd burner,you can however create a cdr on a dvd burner. Sounds like the laptop drive doesn't read burned dvd's which is possible...What should have been asked is if you put the disk in your computer can you read the files? I have several dvd's with avi files on them that play in my wife's laptop,but no dvd decoder software loaded,so dvd movies won't play.
Rich