Hey partner, I know what you are going thru, I have just been there. Thompson drives are a pain in the neck and lower.
I tried dvd's and nothing. the things that worked for me were memorex althogh maxell should do just fine but I had cd-rw when I had an iso file to burn I used nero to just burn the image. When I needed to burn bios I would get my bios and dummy file from xp and send them to my cd drive and used the xp program to burn them.
I know it's desperating, I spent 3 weeks off and on and finally managed to get Slayers working this weekend and it's great. So far I do not have the time to mess with all types of install and Slayers has just about everything done for you. It may not be the best but for me it will do. take your frustating time enjoy it and with thompson a good cd-rw from xp will do. Hope it helps.
Tutorials in this section are excellent, the noobe guide to everything is great and if you can or when you can try 4983 bios. I made a choice and installed my cromewell 1mg and then 4983.86 512 to bank 1, this way whenever I want to change my bios to the chip I boot up from bank two load 1mg of cromewell then switch to bank 1 and load 512 of what ever I want this way I keep what I want and change what I want when I want. Lots of luck friend. Patience and tutorials. Hope this helps.