heatherval, you seem to always chose the more complicated things
A DVD+RW has, yet again, a life of it's own.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvd%2Brw
Must first be blanked (you didn't said you did),
it also can be formatted, as any block device, with your file system of choice.
This should allow you to make a simple copy (cp).
Also, cdrecord ... eeerk!
Install dvd+rw-tools package
The growisofs command is a nice wrapper around cdrecord and mkisofs, makes many choices for you in the background based on the name of your files and your hardware.