Hi again!
Just to clear up any confusion - the error message only occurs when the drive is empty. As soon as there is a CD in the drive the 'import CD' button becomes unresponsive and, whilst the mouse icon changes from a pointer to a hand to show that the button is recognised, pressing on it doesn't do anything no matter how long I wait.
And I'm running the latest OS under my admin account too... I'm currently compromising by using Max to rip CDs to FLAC onto my mac, then importing them from there. It works, but it's not the solution I was after.
Will update you all if I make any headway, and thanks for all your support!
Henry