eco2geek - thanks for the links. aside from the 17 pop ads, its nice to know that the older firmware is still there. however two things have happened:

1st, as far i can tell, upgrading firmware is permanent. as of this morning though, that is not bad.

i tried setting up something to burn before putting in my cd, and all of my burn speed options were there. so yea, it is smart burn. nice to know, and i alreadyt know how to disable it should i need to.

but this doesnt really fix my main problem, which is for some reason, Nero complains that the cd is too small. no option to continue burning, no matter what i do. its different from the other people's problem where nero asks them to finalize the disc. my nero just ejects it and tells me to bugger off =)

Roxio on the other hand, had no problems with it whatsoever, so now i have my knoppix disc and almost all s well in happy land.

i will continue to experiement with nero and look throught their website for stuff.

thanks for the help everyone.