the Dalaverse

Gahhhh. I'm trying to burn some movies onto DVD, which I've never done and am not even sure I can. So far it's not going very well. Windows isn't recognizing the discs. I bought them because they were on clearance (maybe that's the problem?): they're Sony DVD+R, 120 minutes, 4.7GB, rewritable. DivX and iTunes don't even see that there's a disc in there, the Sonic burner says it won't work, and when I try to format the disc it tells me that the media I have inserted is read-only and to please check to make sure this disc is compatible with my recorder.

Help? Is it possible my laptop drive simply won't burn DVDs, or is there something incompatible about these discs in particular? Am I missing a codec or a program somewhere?

Dammit! Just do what I want you to do, you stupid piece of crap!