Looks like you're experiencing a lot of CPU overhead such that interrupting the burning process in any way causes a failure. This is actually a pretty old problem mostly centered on systems with ATAPI burners and no UDMA.
Simple fixes include:
* Making sure your drive can run with UDMA enabled. On Win95 OSR2 and later you can enable ATA(PI) DMA per disk or non-disk device, either in the Device Manager on Win9x and Win2K or with
DMACHECK.EXE on NT4.
* If you can, run the CD-R on its own IDE port separate from the hard drive. The ATA protocol for disks and ATAPI protocol for non-disk devices like CD-ROMs don't operate simultaneously on the same cable, so mode swapping can cause delays and CPU overhead.
* Check your printer driver and printer port to make sure a print job doesn't cause an excess of CPU overhead. If you run NT or Win2K you can use Performance Monitor to measure the CPU hit you take when you print - on Win9X you can use System Monitor. Update software as needed. If needed, you can set the printer "off line" while you burn a CD - it should still queue up print jobs both locally and over the network.
Not-so-simple fixes include:
* Getting a separate ATA adapter card for your burner like the Promise IDE controller card. Most of the modern adapter cards in essence act like SCSI cards and save the CPU a lot of overhead.
* Dumping ATA and going SCSI.
* Running Win2K instead of Win9x - better task management especially with CPU-intensive things like crazy screen savers.