iTunes annoyance

I'm trying to burn a cd for my kids. First time I put together their play list and tried to burn it, I get an error saying "iTunes has encountered an error and needs to close". So it does. But it won't release the cd drive, so I have to reboot. OK. I'll try again. Same exact thing. Once might be a random thing, twice there's an issue. So just for kicks, I try bumping my record speed down to 12x (my drive is a 40x12x48). It appears to complete the burn, but the cd itself is blank.

Given that you can only burn purchased songs so many times through iTunes, I've quit for now. I'll go find the cd's and create my kids' stuff later. WITHOUT using iTunes. Of course, I'm using version 4.9, and I can burn cds elsewhere. Anyone with suggestions (other than to not use iTunes)?