best cdrom drive to read cd's from various sources

[Steve Raiford]

Does anyone have experience on which cd-rom reader performs the best with data media recorderd on other machines with various brands of media? I find media that reads on drive A but not B, and other times media that will read on B but not A. I am looking for a drive that is the best in reading various media. any opinions?

Added info: My current cd-roms that are giving us problems reading are all newer (6 to 18 months old) Mitsui cd-roms. Bought 5 PCs at various times, all with Mitsumi cd-roms.

Thanks

[TheWizard]

Reading shouldn't be a problem for newer CD-ROM drives. I have an old 24X Creative (Matsushita/Panasonic) CD-ROM drive that chokes on Hitachi Maxell media, but it reads everything else fine. Compare this to my 48X Lite-On CD-ROM, it can read anything I have put in it, including the Hitachi Maxell discs. Newer is sometimes better, and so is having the latest firmware. If your drive cannot read a certain kind of media, try updating the firmware, it may be able to read the disc after the upgrade.

For firmware, visit http://www.firmware-flash.com