The CD-ROM drive on my old Emachines (Celeron/366) crapped out after three years usage - the only thing that ever went wrong on that machine. It wasn't spinning right so buffer underruns kept occurring when I was trying to copy CDs. It's possible your actual hardware went bad, rather than a software problem - it could be as simple as dust on the lens, or more serious like what I had (required replacing the drive).
I also had a cheap piece of junk CD-RW drive go on me after a year's use. It spun up only when it wanted to, and you had to hold the tray in to prevent it spitting the discs out as soon as you put them in.
