After days of messing around I finally burned a VCD with
a working menu. Most of my problems came from my first try at extracting the Mpeg from the original .dat file. I had used a freeware utility that didn't fix mpg errors. ONE SINGLE error near the start of the video made it impossible to place chaptermarks! The successful solution used these programs:
VCDgear to extract the Mpeg (error-free)
TMPGenc to de-mux
VCDmux to re-mux (comes with VCD 2.0 Toolkit)
VCD 2.0 Toolkit to design menu
TOCsplit to convert the disc image for GearPro
GearPro to burn the disc
Also the ATI media player is a good way to test VCD's because it recognizes them with menu's in your pc's cd-rom.
As one of the newbie's who was always asking "how do I add chapters" I encourage all newbies to read the tutotials here
for all the tools above. And thanks to the guys who run
this cool site.