While trying to burn a collection of mp3s to an audio CD using K3b (Knoppix 5.0.1 live CD), I encountered the following problems:

1. After starting K3b, a message popped up saying that it would be better to run it as root. I was given the choice to switch to root from within K3b by supplying the root password. Since I was unable to find this p/w, I was forced to run as "knoppix." Does such a p/w exist? Can one be set? In any event, I was unable to get K3b to work. Could my failure to run as root be the culprit?

2. Opting to create an ISO image on a hard disk partition along the way failed and generated an error message indicating that the file created could not be opened to store the wav equivalents of the sellected mp3s .

3. After opting to create the ISO image on a USB flash drive, the conversion of mp3s to wav went ok but burning to CD failed even at 1x speed.

4. Opting for 'on the fly' burning similarly failed at any burn speed as well as burn mode generating a variety of error messages.

5. Opting for creating an ISO image only produced a collection of wav files (as many as the original mp3s) so no ISO could be found on the flash drive when I tried to burn the (phantom) ISO onto a CD later.

6. Experimenting with burn modes produced only different error messages but no eventual success.

It should be noted that my external USB CD Writer (Plextor) and its maximum burn speed (48x) were correctly identified by K3b. Most burn attempts were made at a burn speed of 4x. Any ideas as to what went wrong and how to get around it?