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[pixelated]

Thanks, that's useful information.  Was that CD-R previously readable in that DVD-R drive?

[bryan29]

No, this is a new computer that I am using now.

[pixelated]

Can you read that CD-R on the old computer?  If you can, which OS is the old computer running?
Also, do you know the brand and model number for the DVD-R drive on the new computer?

[bryan29]

Yes, one of the CD-Rs did read on my other old computer. It was running WinXP.

[eyore]

It really may just be a case of the CD-Rs being poor quality (especially if they are rather old ones). There's a disclaimer on all CDs and DVDs that they may not play on all machines.
I have some really cheap ones which may, or may not, play on my various players.
I'd really suggest copying them onto whichever plays them and reburning them using a decent disc (pop the new disc in the new PC first and see if it recognises them as discs). It looks like that may be the problem and your new PC just can't see them as valid discs. It happens.
I doubt this is going to be a PC/OS problem and it's very common with CD-Rs especially when trying to play on a different reader to the one they were created on if they were burned on an older burner with a different OS.
As I said, I bought a USB burner after getting similar problems and they play fine on that.
I'd still uninstall the burner via device manager, reboot and  and let Windows reinstall it though - just in case good old Windows has a corrupted file somewhere in the burner software.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=uk&lc=en&docname=c01897812#N206

especially this section
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=uk&lc=en&docname=c01897812#N258

[Wizzard419]

Quality of the burn itself may not be the issue, they only have a life expectancy of about 10 years before the materials start to degrade to the point it no longer is readable. This is also why they are not that great of a medium to store stuff on for archival purposes.

[pixelated]

bryan29, do you still have the old computer?  From your original post you said the CD-Rs that are unreadable on your new computer (Windows 7) are still readable on another computer.  Is that other computer the old Windows XP computer?

Did you burn these CD-Rs on the old computer?  If you're willing to physically open up both computers, you can temporarily remove the CD/DVD drive from the old computer and connect it to the new computer to see if the unreadable CD-Rs work in the old optical drive on Windows 7.
If the unreadable CD-Rs still work in the old drive, then the problem is some difference between the old and new CD/DVD drives, probably in the laser used to read the disc.
On the other hand, if the CD-R is still unreadable in the old drive while running on Windows 7, then the problem is with the OS.

I think I had a similar problem when I upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7.  I don't remember if my burned CDs and DVDs wouldn't be recognized and just keep spinning, as in your situation, or if they would be recognized by Windows 7 but showed as being empty.  The problem was the UDF support in Windows 7 and I should be able to find out how I fixed that.

Which software did you use to burn the unreadable CD-Rs and how did you create the CD-R?  Was it the "drag-and-drop" method or did you open a CD burning app and burned an entire CD all at once?
Did you use the same software and method to burn the CD-Rs that are readable?

[eyore]

I'd only add that I have had unreadable CDs which after several dozen attempts, suddenly read. I'm presuming that the laser has to hit a certain spot on insertion (I used to note the orientation of the disc and then try, replace it say 10 degrees further to the left/right and so on. I have burned several thousand CDs and only a few did this but maybe worth a try.
I've also had those stupid blanks that it isn't obvious which way up they go in (both sides silver) so I was playing the wrong side 

[bryan29]

Thanks all for the help. I will try some of these methods that you have told me to do. I really do not want to lose these mp3 audio files. These are my disney audio collection. The only thing I do not understand is. Why some of the mp3 audio cd-rs read and some do not now? Also when I try to load the unreadable cd-r the light on the DVD-R just stays on the whole time while I guess it tries to load.

[eyore]

Different brands of CD-R can differ when played. CD players get better and less tolerant of errors so you can get something playing great on one and nothing on the other. I've read pages and pages of stuff over the years of people having exactly the same problems from Win95 onwards. As was said, CD-Rs deteriorate over time anyway.  Your new player/reader isn't recognising the plastic as a CD. Do you have a DVD player that plays mp3s or a portable CD player? I tend to check discs play by using one of those (they will still read after a lot of abuse, I've found),
How old are the actual discs (from when you bought them) and are they a named make?

[Wizzard419]

Since they said "CD-R" I am guessing those are some pretty old recordings. It would be the same as saying "My zip disk".

[bryan29]

Okay I tried something. I have a laptop computer that runs Win 7. I tried the unreadable CD-Rs and all of them worked for some reason. The CD-Rs that were unreadable were the Imation, FujiFilm, TDK, Sony, and Memorex CD-RW. I do not understand why the CD-Rs worked in my laptop, but not my desktop and both are running Win 7.

[eyore]

It's probably more to do with the reader (hardware) then that's on the PC or the software. As I said, some hardware is more tolerant than others to home-burned discs. They'll play fine on some PCs and not on others.
It's a very common problem and there are slight differences between drives.
There isn't a quick fix for it. The drive they were burned on and the one on your new PC just are not compatible with one another. That's fairly normal, unfortunately. It could be as simple as one of the lasers being very slightly out. The laser reads the data at a certain focus/width with a little give and take. If the new one is slightly different then, in simple terms, it's reading a bit of one set of data and a bit of the one next to it so gets confused.
This was very common with tapes where the head had to be adjusted slightly to match what was on the tape when playing on a different machine. It's not something you can do yourself with a laser.
Your only real solutions are to rip the CDs to a PC that can read them and copy to you current PC (I'd suggest a flash drive) and burn them again on your new PC if you need them on CD. You could replace the CD drive on your new machine. You could get an external USB drive.
The fact that all of them worked on another PC means it's the differences in the readers that's the trouble. Put it down to mis-aligned laser in the Win7 machine. Do CDs burned on the new machine play on the old one by the way? Best to check that or you could get the same problem when you change the PC again.

[pixelated]

You can try opening this Microsoft Support web page on the Windows 7 desktop computer and clicking the green "Run Now" button to see if it fixes the problem with the new computer.  It's something simple to try before resorting to something more involved such as copying the discs or replacing the DVD-R drive.
Fix problems with CD or DVD drives that can’t read or write media
http://support2.microsoft.com/mats/cd_dvd_drive_problems

Your only real solutions are to rip the CDs to a PC that can read them and copy to you current PC (I'd suggest a flash drive) and burn them again on your new PC if you need them on CD.

Since the laptop and the new desktop both run Windows 7, it's probably easier to enable Simple File Sharing on the laptop instead of doing the flash drive dance :
Simple File Sharing in Windows 7
http://www.home-network-help.com/file-sharing-in-windows-7.html
Windows 7 - Simple File Sharing
Windows 7 - Simple File Sharing

[Some1]

The CD-Rs that were unreadable were the Imation, FujiFilm, TDK, Sony, and Memorex CD-RW.

Are all the unreadable disks CD-RW ?
The technology ( and format ) is different for the two types of disks ( R vs RW ). If the RW was not closed, you may have trouble reading them in drives/systems different than the disk/system they were created/formatted on.
You may want to copy the disks ( especially the RW's ) to a backup while you have access to the system that can read them.