Unreadable cd rom in windows

The only time I ever experienced any problem like this was with a 24x CD-Rom. I forget now which brand it was, but I do remember it was a world of trouble. Basically this rom would read sometimes, not other time. Once in DOS, never in Windows ... and then vice-versa the net time I booted ... you get the idea. I tried dozens of CDs to see if that was the problem, new Windows drivers, ...
Finally one day I said the h@ll with it and grabbed a new Rom ... never had a problem since then; figuring I would play with this one some day.
One day when service work was kinda slow and boring I grabbed that old Rom and played in a different system. It worked like a charm - this blew me away. I then tried it in another system with XP and it acted the same. I just took a shot in the dark that this "Brand XYZ" rom simply does not work with XP - gave it to a young lad for his Windows 98 machine and never thought about it until now.