Hi gang, new to the whole mac thing. Been a windoze drone up till now. I have so far loved the mac, (just got a simple emac with osx). Have been enjoying for the past few months Ive had it but have ran into a real dead end. Everytime I download something the disk utility opens up. Spent the past week trying to find help online to no avail. Finally I downloaded and installed Firefox, and that particular symptom is fixed, but I still cant do anything. This whole mess started when I accidently deleted my entire ipod library. I went to best buy and bought some software that I thought would allow me to save my info on a PC. (thats a whole other issue). Of course I didnt know it then but it was a pc disk and so wouldnt open on my mac because of the autorun. So I spend a few days trying to figure out how to open that disk, failed, then moved on to rebuilding my library. I downloaded a .bin and .cue file for use on my ipod. I need to convert the files, so I try to download VCDgear. When I try to open the VCDgear program Im told I need the stuffit engine. So I dowload that, cant open that because Im told its on a locked volume, select another destination. I know this is convuluted, but bottom line is, everytime I try to download something I cant open it, and everytime I try to fix what I think is wrong, I run into something else that I need to fix, (apparently), and so goes the viscous cycle. I know Im all over the map here and for that I do apologize, but thats about as good as I can explain it presently. Ive just finished another 7 hour stretch in front of this computer and fixed nothing. So, in closing, have mercy on a newby, GET me out of this hamster wheel of hell! .....(thanks)