Defrag the drive you're using before recording; if it's audio, don't attempt to write at more than x2 speed (data can safely be written faster).  Shut any programs that may try to write to disk; -everything but Explorer and Systray, if I remember right (use ctrl+alt+del).  If you're copying a CD, copy it to your hard drive first, rather than trying to copy directly from a cd-reader.

Malcolm