a friend has purchased a standalone audio cd recorder to copy his old audio tapes on to cd, Apparently it can only use AUDIO DISC, standard cdr disk will not record on it, it just says DATA DISK then spits the disc out. Does anyone know what the difrence is between the disc types and is it possible to amend the book type of a data disc so it will be reconised as a audio cdr in the recorder

That was unfortunately a scam that companies did when they released those home cd-recorders. Basically, the machine reads the media code and if it's not a match for what it supports, it spits it out. It COULD write to a standard CD-R, but they programmed the machine to write only to a small list of special "audio" cd-r that they chose so they could sell them for more. They hoped that they could slow down CD copying and made a killing with those who still wanted to do it using home equipment. They flopped and it's very hard nowadays to even find media for it.

You're stuck using their media unless you find a way to hack the machine's firmware.

Thanks
that was what i was thinking glad it wasnt me that brought it
in that case does anyone know if and where you can buy full face printable audio cd media

Good luck finding some at a reasonable price. Your best bet is to try some proper hifi shops.