Thanks for the input.
In desperation I fiddled with the adjustment/focus screw of the original 12x TEAC drive and got it reading again, although it's touchy with CDR's (could well be the quality of my burns though, since a fresh burn seems to be running just fine right now).
It could also be a poor contact between the IDE CD-ROM adapter plate. I don't have a lot of other legacy hardware to swap and match to narrow down the problem (SCSI CD-ROM, other laptop to plug the other CD drives into etc), so I'll keep plodding along with the working 12x and let you all know if there are any revelations or breakthroughs. Cheers.
In desperation I fiddled with the adjustment/focus screw of the original 12x TEAC drive and got it reading again, although it's touchy with CDR's (could well be the quality of my burns though, since a fresh burn seems to be running just fine right now).
It could also be a poor contact between the IDE CD-ROM adapter plate. I don't have a lot of other legacy hardware to swap and match to narrow down the problem (SCSI CD-ROM, other laptop to plug the other CD drives into etc), so I'll keep plodding along with the working 12x and let you all know if there are any revelations or breakthroughs. Cheers.