Sorry for the late reply but been away from "the net" al day Mark
From what you have said it sounds like the BIOS is not recognising the CD Writer correctly.
I think it will be set to auto detect in BIOS but is having difficulty recognising what it is for somereason,that is why it is getting so far anf then "hanging"
What I need you to tell me is how you have installed the new CD Writer.
IS it in addition to the CD Rom or in place of it?
Is it on the Secondary IDE channel or as a Slave to your hard drive on the Primary channel?
As Simon mentioned,are the jumpers set correctly for it being a slave or a primary(there are letters marked C S M stamped in the case above where the jumpers go so that you can set it correctly)
Sorry Mark didnt realise you had posted again while I was writing this
Ok thats one question answered,any more ?