Operation Fail could be attributed to one of three factors- A severely fragmented hard drive, inconsistent media or a failed CD drive.
1. To test the CD drive,try the CD Play function. If a CD drive will playback a commercial CD then the problem is likely related to inconsistent CD brands and/or the condition of the hard drive.
2. For media- Do not use office supply brands. (Memorex,Maxell<Imation, Verbatim) Use Yaiyo Yuden,BASF,HHB, MicroBoards or MITSUI Gold disks. These brands are the brands that recording studios use. They will most likely be found in music stores and not office supply stores.
3. The only way to resolve fragmentation issues is to format the drive, which will erase everything. To avoid fragmentation, always keep your material backed up and format your drive every 2 or 3 months before fragmentation becomes problematic.
If you are getting operation fail messages you will want to try one of the recommended CD brands and try backing up one song at a time. The next step would be to try one song at a time with the "verify' to OFF.