CD-Rs work in CD-ROM but fail in laptop DVD drives

I'm having trouble using data CD-Rs in two different laptops that have
internal DVD-ROM drives. It's a real problem because I need to use
CD-Rs of installers for Windows 2000 or XP (legal copies - we are
permitted, and in fact required to make our own installer CD copies
from masters supplied under the MS Academic Alliance program.) When
I've tried to re-install the OS from any of my CD-Rs to either laptop,
it would begin, start copying files, then pause to report "error
copying file XX" (different files on various attempts.) Sometimes
hitting enter to retry would move along a few more files then fail
again. Swapping in another CD of the same image and retrying yet again
also got stuck the same way.

I've had the problem in the past week on both Dell Inspiron and a
Toshiba Tecra 8100 with internal DVD drives (which of course can use
data CDs in general). On the Dell I have fallen back on using a
factory-mastered XP Home installer that came with the machine instead,
which is working okay. So the drive doesn't seem to be failing
outright, just being picky about my CD-Rs.

All CD-Rs have been burned in the same burner, an MSI 48-16-48 CDRW
drive that I've had a bit over a year. I've tried several copies of
the same data on both silver Mitsui CDR-80's (rated to 24x) and silver
StarMedia (a cheaper CD-R) as well as at least one earlier burn I had
on a silver e-Proformance (rated to 32x). I burn using Nero 5.5.0.2
which came bundled with my burner. The fastest I can write with this
setup is 16x, despite the claims of the drive and media labels. I have
also tried burning as slow as 4x on a Mitsui, but got the same errors.

All these CD-Rs have worked without visible errors in plain CD-ROM
drives, but got multiple errors at various points when read in two
laptop DVD drives. I tested one Mitsui disk using CDCheck v.3, and it
got zero errors and zero warnings.

I could of course try going shopping for a variety of other brands of
blank, burn this same image to all the brands, and keep trying them
until maybe one will work to completion in the laptop's DVD drive.
That's a daunting prospect since it means running Windows XP install
over and over again ...

I'm open to suggestions on either procedure or media choices.

Added details:

I do support for over 100 PCs, and I've also seen a few cases of a
certain CD-ROM drive getting errors reading CDs that I can read just
fine in many other devices. I have a cleaning CD that I've tried for
some of these, but it rarely makes this problem go away. (In the case
of the two laptops I have not used the cleaning CD because neither
laptop was bootable, so I couldn't run the audio controls needed to
tell the drive play audio track 2 to move the head under the brush.)

--
Jim
University sysadmin

Jim Prall wrote:
I'm having trouble using data CD-Rs in two different laptops that have
internal DVD-ROM drives.

I suggest you see whether the drive manufacturers have recommendations
for a line of media which they will read. I have about a dozen hoarded
Kodak Digital Media blanks (gold/gold, ca. 1998, 8x max). They are the
only ones the Toshiba CD-ROM drive in my test laptop will read.

Mike
--

http://www.mrichter.com/