Most any cdrom drive should be able to read them. Are you finishing and burning them all at once or writing some files then writing some more and maybe not finishing/finalizing the cd? I’m not sure if some drivers or old oses might have a problem with cds with multiple sessions or things that haven’t been finalized but that would be my first question.

I have an old 8x from circa 1996 and it reads burned cds just fine, but I write and finalize all at once, so maybe that makes some difference.

If you’re not concerned about period correctness you can always get any old 50x+ cd drive and that should work, assuming it’s not a problem with drivers or the os etc

8 speeds are hit and miss still, about 50:50, there are one or two down to 2x that work but those are relatively rarer. Best bet is 16x or better, but the lasers age, the lenses get a fog maybe sometimes or build up tiny scratches from too frequent cleaning, so they aren't so good with age. So there's still a tendency for newer to work better. It's not even Aztech probably since I had an aztech 4 speed that was great with them, though I don't know if Aztech really really made them or they were various mitsumi, sony, panasonic they slapped their own label on.

I think themost important thing is to have a drive & controller & OS driver that all work together using a UDMA transfer mode. Otherwise you risk buffer under runs burning disks regardless of the drive speed.

I've always had the best luck with Toshiba drives for reading CD-Rs with low speed (<12x) drives. I have a 4x SCSI Toshiba in my 386 machine that reads every CD-R I throw at it.

Agree ! older Toshiba, NEC and Plextors are good at reading CDR, though with proper CDR media is less of an issue with Generic slow cdrom drives even when burned at 2x or 3x the older cdroms max rating.
I typically use something like the pictures (where they state 1x-16x or 1x-24x compatible) both Imation and some older HP branded (they were 4x-32x compat iirc) CDR are really good and state the compat range....
added: I have some generic GQ labeled 1x-48x that work OK reading with most slower cdroms but not 100% like the Imations so far..(am mostly burning with a LG Bluray/DVD/CD burner).
added2: those type can also be written to with my 8x burners w/o issue as well...seems it works both ways from my experience:)

> read a wide range of blank CDs

There's your problem, there's nothing to read in the first place! /s

Seriously though, the only type of discs that I consistently had issues with were CD-RWs (which need a much better laser) so if you happen to be using those then try non-rewriteable ones instead.

If this is a simple case of a broken drive, pretty much any one will do (provided it's not one of the earliest ones - look for, say, 4x or faster and you should be good - and in decent condition), but if you want the very best then I'd recommend looking for one from Plextor (but tbh using them just for reading would be pearls before swine).

To maximize compatibility:

• Use ISO 9660 file system since that is DOS compatible. Do not use Joliet and definetly not UDF. Joliet should be compatible with DOS but if it is not needed, then ISO 9660 (level 1) is safer for max compatibility.
• Do not burn multi session discs. Some of the oldest drives might not support it or see only the first session.
• Burn with slowest possible speed

Some 4x drives won't support CD-Rs (Mitsumi), yet some even older do. But 8x drives should work with CD-R.

IMHO a good brand (Plextor, Toshiba, Pioneer) IDE CD-RW (with or without DVD combo function) would be the most compatible with various disc formats. Experiences with DVD-ROM can vary, but most of them can read discs with newer standards. Like aitotat said, older CD-ROM might have problem reading Joliet or multi-session.

DVD±RW drives with IDE interface do exist (I've got two) but they are not common; I wouldn't use those under DOS either. Even with different brand names, most of them were actually made by Lite-On then rebadged.

Its not exactly what you asked for however Pioneer made a slot loading DVD-ROM drive that was part of their LaserMemory series of drives called the DVD-105SZ.
I have one and it has never not been able to read a disc of any kind from the oldest CD-ROM to the newest CD-RW discs and any DVD movie disc too.

dormcat wrote on 2023-11-10, 06:51:

DVD±RW drives with IDE interface do exist (I've got two) but they are not common; I wouldn't use those under DOS either. Even with different brand names, most of them were actually made by Lite-On then rebadged.

Seems different over here in North America, like ODD were getting to be "over" among the general populace as SATA took hold, and I see more DVDRW in IDE than SATA. Though getting to the mid noughts they were tending to die after a couple of years use, so maybe got recycled sooner.

An IDE/ATAPI DVD±RW drive was quite common here in the UK.
I still have 3 in working machines and another on the pile of parts and I dont think one of them is Lite-On, though I do remember that was a common brand 10-15 years ago.

I have success with the LG CED-8120B CD drive (which is from the early 2000s) when reading burned CD-R discs. Just a little warning though: It is picky with DOS CD drivers when it comes to CD audio playback, the best one was GSCDROM.SYS.

Hello folks,

thanks for your answers and tips. Today I found an old Samsung CD burner at my workplace that was thrown away. It reads all my burned cds. So I'm happy.

Best wishes and have a nice weekend!
JF

dormcat wrote on 2023-11-10, 06:51:

DVD±RW drives with IDE interface do exist (I've got two) but they are not common; I wouldn't use those under DOS either.

That doesn't match my experience/recollection. Until the i965 chipset came out in summer 2006, there were NO SATA ODDs in the retail market. Zero. You could get a PATA drive in beige or black, but only PATA. To the point that all the Taiwanese mobo manufacturers included an add-on PATA controller soldered onto their boards. Maybe a few weeks after the i965 launch, SATA ODDs started hitting stores.

Meanwhile, the price of DVD burners had been plummetting for years and the speeds increasing. In maybe 2002 or 2003, it was a 4X drive for several hundred bucks. By late summer... 2004... (I can't remember if it was 2003 or 2004), I bought a LiteOn 12X (encouraged by a friend who was a leader in the LiteOn modding community who told me that drive could be flashed to the not-yet-released 16X dual layer model) for $110-130CAD. With the benefit of hindsight, I bought something like 6 months early (something I have done often) - 6 months later an official 16X drive would be quite a bit cheaper. So in the course of something like two years the speeds went from 4X to 16X and the prices were in freefall.

By 2006, I was buying a PATA 16X DVD burner for my C2D system for $45.99 CAD (still have the order confirmation). And in 2008, I bought my first SATA DVD burner for $23.98 CAD. This was the beginning of going back to a single ODD in a system - in 2001 or 2002, you were probably going for a DVD-ROM and a separate CD burner.

I suppose the large OEMs probably shipped insane quantities of elcheapo SATA DVD burners after 2o06-7 whereas a PATA drive in 2002-6 remained a relatively high-end enthusiasty option, so numbers-wise, sure, SATA drives have probably massively outnumbered PATA drives. But I think there were plenty of early C2D machines and Athlon X2 3800+ systems from 2005-6 with PATA DVD burners.

VivienM wrote on 2023-11-11, 01:47:

That doesn't match my experience/recollection. Until the i965 chipset came out in summer 2006, there were NO SATA ODDs in the re […]
Show full quote

dormcat wrote on 2023-11-10, 06:51:

DVD±RW drives with IDE interface do exist (I've got two) but they are not common; I wouldn't use those under DOS either.

That doesn't match my experience/recollection. Until the i965 chipset came out in summer 2006, there were NO SATA ODDs in the retail market. Zero. You could get a PATA drive in beige or black, but only PATA. To the point that all the Taiwanese mobo manufacturers included an add-on PATA controller soldered onto their boards. Maybe a few weeks after the i965 launch, SATA ODDs started hitting stores.

Meanwhile, the price of DVD burners had been plummetting for years and the speeds increasing. In maybe 2002 or 2003, it was a 4X drive for several hundred bucks. By late summer... 2004... (I can't remember if it was 2003 or 2004), I bought a LiteOn 12X (encouraged by a friend who was a leader in the LiteOn modding community who told me that drive could be flashed to the not-yet-released 16X dual layer model) for $110-130CAD. With the benefit of hindsight, I bought something like 6 months early (something I have done often) - 6 months later an official 16X drive would be quite a bit cheaper. So in the course of something like two years the speeds went from 4X to 16X and the prices were in freefall.

By 2006, I was buying a PATA 16X DVD burner for my C2D system for $45.99 CAD (still have the order confirmation). And in 2008, I bought my first SATA DVD burner for $23.98 CAD. This was the beginning of going back to a single ODD in a system - in 2001 or 2002, you were probably going for a DVD-ROM and a separate CD burner.

I suppose the large OEMs probably shipped insane quantities of elcheapo SATA DVD burners after 2o06-7 whereas a PATA drive in 2002-6 remained a relatively high-end enthusiasty option, so numbers-wise, sure, SATA drives have probably massively outnumbered PATA drives. But I think there were plenty of early C2D machines and Athlon X2 3800+ systems from 2005-6 with PATA DVD burners.

I think Im with you on this one.

My Dell Precision 690 came with a DVD writer and that was ATAPI too and that was just before Christmas of 2007. Which I still own.

Yes, in North America we had PATA dvd burners thru at least 2007 or longer as a common available drive. I have a BenQ DW822A bought summer 2004 and used it for a while then shelved it as a spare when got a much faster one a NEC ND-3550A in 2006, both are IDE/PATA (still have them and both still worked last time tested in 2020). Also have a DVD-DL pata burner in the XP box, not sure what brand ATM but think it a Lite-On....

There was a period as well where anything but high end motherboards seemed relatively stingy with the SATA ports, like you only got two, and you didn't need the speed yet for DVDRW or ROM so you filled up your PATA channel first.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-11-11, 03:50:

There was a period as well where anything but high end motherboards seemed relatively stingy with the SATA ports, like you only got two, and you didn't need the speed yet for DVDRW or ROM so you filled up your PATA channel first.

My recollection is that many of the early SATA optical drives had high specs but low performance for some comon tasks. In 2014, I was commandeering my kid’s socket 939 system with a PATA Dvd-r drive to rip MP3 files because it was 10x faster than my Haswell & Wolfsdale systems that I had built with Samsung Sata DVD+-RW drives years later. I thought I had avoided drives with sata bridges, but there was something that was making the new drives read CD’s at 2X instead of 20x

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-11-11, 03:50:

There was a period as well where anything but high end motherboards seemed relatively stingy with the SATA ports, like you only got two, and you didn't need the speed yet for DVDRW or ROM so you filled up your PATA channel first.

Intel's ICH5 had 2 SATA ports and 2 PATA channels; I think ICH6 went to 4 SATA and 1 PATA channel, then ICH8 went to 4-6 SATA (depending on the variant) and dropped PATA.

Not sure what Via/Nvidia/other chipset makers were doing at the time - it wouldn't surprise me if they had stuck to the 2xSATA, 2xPATA configuration much longer than Intel.