thanks for the reply haven...i've actually already done all the stuff you suggested, and the huge files were full of scrambled noise and half speed audio! i'm working with an audiowerk8 sound card and i think it crashes when there is a disk in my internal cd player, as if logic and the played are both trying to access it at once. i tried to uninstall the audiowerk8 software and reinstall, but i cant seem to do it. any ideas? thanks again