Old CDs not being read

Windows 10 Pro Build 19045.4170

I'm at a point where I finally decided to go through my old CD collection & try & remove important files off onto other media, but have run into a problem I'm unsure of the reason for. I only have an external generic CD reader which is now rarely used but kept in its box. CDs (from 2012-2022) are equally all stored boxed & appear clean etc. However, every single one shows up in Explorer as "Empty" yet Isobuster can happily find the files on there which I can sometimes extract that way. However, I'm just curious - is this a CD issue as I gather they can deteriorate over time, or a reader issue or something else? I'd much prefer to be able to do a drag/drop in Explorer for speed as the way I'm doing it feels like it's taking longer tho that might just be me.

Hmm good point - no idea TBH, but would imagine I would have done for some of them at least. I'll have a better idea of that with the last few I've just found which were commercially cut for me from video tapes so they'd definitely be closed. No way of fixing that if that's the case as I've equally no idea which program I'd have used at the time to cut them

Bastet said:

Did you ‘close’/finalise the CDs when you finished adding files to them? If not then you may require the same program you used to burn the files.

Yup - you were right!!! The last few have worked fine. Still glad I asked as I'd never have thought about the closing aspect to them, so might try & see if Nero would do the job for some at least but I've a vague notion I used 2 other ones - still sorted for now at least. THANK YOU!!