how to set Nero Burning room speeds? help

One other question: When I check the write speed, it offers me options down to 4x, but no slower. Does it make sense that the writer can go no slower than that?

Check what speed your driver specs for; on most it's written on the front. Go with that. Actually, on older drivers it's often 4x anyway.

Make a temporary image of the disk to be copied on your hard drive.

The front panel says 40x12x48x, but I want to read slower, not faster, than 4x.

I think you can do this in the Nero Toolkit. I've never actually done it, so I don't know. But if you go to options you can select a CD speed and click apply. I assume that will slow it down to the correct speed. The toolkit will also test the CD speed, and even if you have a high speed drive, it will find the speed that works reliably and then set Nero to work at that speed. There is also a way of forcing a slower speed, that is a bit more complicated, but it is described in Nero Help. Just do a search on "read speed" and then click on setting read speed.