My final cry for help (please read/help)

[dcdrica]

This weekend I took a backup that a friend made for me off his burner, I copied it using Nero 5.0. Someone suggested that I try opening the other CD's I made to see if any files were there, well I didn't see any. But when I made a backup of a friend's working backup (works fine on my PSX) I wouldn't play but when I opened it with explorer on my PC I saw all the files needed. I even tried it on my brother's 7001 version PSX and it still didn't work. It can't all be my burner or PSX. Must be the Brand of CDR's I'm using or the External Mod? Also I noticed that Ricoh has a firmware upgrade for the 7040A burner I have, should I try updating the firmware?
As far as the internal mods go, I'm not that good with stuff like that so I'm sure I would mess up my PSX. Is there a place where you can send your PSX off and they do it for you?

Thanks,

Venom