external cdrw under 9.2.2.

hi. i'm having a coupla probs under 9.2.2, as mentioned. (this is a dv400,
slot-loading imac a friend gave me. my first mac, woo hoo!)

1) i have an iomega predator external usb cdrw. this device shows up in
system profiler, but otherwise is not working on any level. it's not seen by
the apple burner or toast 5. i checked the iomega site and they say that no
drivers are required. ideas?

2) i have a w2k3 server and have enabled apple file and printer sharing. on
the mac, i go to chooser|appleshare and see the server, but when i try to
connect, i am not prompted for authentication. i get the message, 'the user
authentication method required by this server can't be found. please check
the appleshare folder in the extensions folder and try again.' when i check,
i don't have an appleshare folder in the extensions folder, just the
extension itself. i do have several appleshare folders in various system
folders throughout on the hd, but they all are either empty, or have 3 files
in them: afpload, check_afp.app and sshhelper. so, wtf?

fyi, when i got this imac, i intialized the drive so this is a clean install
(9.1) that i've upgraded to 9.2.2.

tia!

p.s. i'm thinking of doing this
http://www.technowarehousellc.com/g4upforslloi.html so i can upgrade to osx.
anyone have any experience with this company or input on whether it's even
worth it?

p.s.s. sorry if this posted twice.