My basic knowledge is that this is a property of the laser in the drive. It has to be stronger or of a certain spec to be able to read burned CDs, as the grooves for those are lighter than the ones of factory press.

For a drive of that era, I would expect it should read CD-Rs without a hitch. My two 2x CD-ROM drives from cirka 93-94 do so just fine.

It is possible that the laser diode is tired and going out, but the first thing is to write the CD-Rs very slow, like 4x or even 2x. The quality will be higher and it increases the chance that older, even worn out drives, can read them. I always use 4x by default.

I burn the CDs at 8x. Will it make that much of a difference if I burn at 2X?
All my other CD-ROMS don't have this issue, all of which are much much older and used

Retronerd878 wrote on 2025-09-11, 13:21:

I burn the CDs at 8x. Will it make that much of a difference if I burn at 2X?
All my other CD-ROMS don't have this issue, all of which are much much older and used

Nobody knows if that makes any difference or not, you either try it out or not.

My bet is that the diode is on its way out. You might get it to function better by adjusting the laser unit, there is usually a pot which can be used to adjust the voltage to the diode. But this is just temporary fix, it will cntinue to degrade and in fact it will wear more quickly after boosting the voltage. Then at some point it will cease to read any discs.