I had an experience with an old CD-ROM drive ( windows was saying that it was not connected properly and it wasn't reading any cd ) .
I have done two things . I have opened my CD ROM drive and cleaned with alcohol the electronical card inside ( there was a few dust ) . And before trying again to read cd i have used a CD-ROM to clean the lens .
Don't know what worked but then i could again read all CD-ROM for a week or two . But later i had often problems with this CD-ROM drive to read some CD-ROM ( it worked well or not at all ) . I don't use it anymore because it is worn .
In my case the event was the install of a CD/RW drive ( but after , no matter the computer or the status , there was a hardware issue ) .
You should check if :
- DMA is still on . DMA off can give weird results though not these results usually .
- if ASPI layer ( if you have one ) is not corrupted . I know it can give weird reading results because i experienced it with my LTD-166S .
you can use NeroInfotool for these tasks .
http://www.cdspeed2000.com/go.php3?link=download.html
By the way what is your O.S ?