CD drive issue

hey guys.

basically i have a few Memorex DVD-RWs that i need to lift data off of. the problem is my CD drive wont recognize the discs.

some of them are backup discs, others are DVDs with recordings off the TV that were recorded using a standard DVD recorder.

the drive that i have is the Sony DVD-RW DL IDE drive, model number DRU-842A. i also have an IDE HDD and both are on the same IDE controller running in cable select mode. the CD drive is the master

when i put the DVDs in the drive, it only recognizes them as blank CD-RWs, and give me the option to erase them.

i know for sure that there is data on them, but they are not finalized. the strange thing is, though, for the movie discs, they will play on PowerDVD off of the same drive with no problems at all. but for some reason the drive refuses to read them as DVDs in My Computer.

something is wrong here, as PowerDVD can play their content, but the computer wont acknowledge that there is actually anything on them. i am under the assumption that if a CD is incompatible for whatever reason, then nothing will be able to access it.

heres my computer specs if it will shed some light on this for you guys.

Windows XP Home Edition with SP3
Intel Pentium Dual Core E2180 CPU
EVGA 8800GT GPU
2GB DDR2 5300 OCZ RAM
Gigabyte Motherboard with the Intel 945g chipset.

i have tried the discs on another computer with WinXP pro and much different hardware, still no luck.

if anyone could provide some info on why this is happening, and a possible fix, i would be eternally grateful. i need to get access to this data, and ive scoured the web for an answer but no luck .

sorry for the long post, just wanna give as much info as possible. Thanks guys

i have a DVD-RW drive. i just used the term CD drive to make it easier

Try several other computers with different drives.

This has happened to me before. DVD's read OK on some computers/drives, not others.