My imac stopped reading dvd-r....says its a blank disc

Hi!
So I have a imac intel g5 with two dvd drives. When I first got it,i could read and write on both dvd-r's and dvd+r's...however for some reason both drives stopped reading the dvd-r's. The computer recognizes them only as blank dvd's. I know for sure that there is data (a bunch of quicktimes) on the disc. In fact, I burned them there myself when the discs read fine, and even double checked them after burning on the same mac and they read fine. So I can also tell you the discs were burned properly and finalized. And the discs even read right now on my friend's PC. Now dvd+r's work just fine. Also, I've already gone to"about my mac" info to double check that the drives are able to read and write both dvd formats, and confirmed that they should and like I said, they worked just fine originally. I am really perplexed.
Thank you for your help in advance.

So I have a imac intel g5 with two dvd drives
There is no such machine: intel G5 - it is either an Intel or the (previous generation) G5 PPC. So, since you also show you are running 10.4.11, it is possible that it is a G5. In that case, you have posted in the wrong forum (for Intel iMacs) and you would get much better answers in the appropriate forum for PPC iMacs.
Now, if it is an Intel, there is something else puzzling me: You say you have two dvd drives? How is that - AFAIK, there has not been an iMac made with 2 Superdrives. So could you please explain that with a bit more detail.

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I am currently using the 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 20" iMac, about 4 months ago i had a problem with the superdrive on the imac and it would not eject a DVD i was using. It repeatedly tried to spit the DVD out every 30 seconds or so without any luck. After about 2 days it eventually spat the DVD out.
I was then hesitant to stick anything back in the drive in case the problem occured again. I then bought an external DVD drive and had no problems for the last 2/3 months or so with it until yesterday afternoon. I was trying to install the optional installs from the software that came with the iMac and it got half way through and said the disc was unreadable (which i thought was strange as its the first time the media had been out of the plastic wallet). I then thought nothing of it until early this morning when i tried to play a DVD on the external drive and it spins for about a minute and then spits the DVD out. This happens with any DVD i have tried films, to backup dvds to games and everything and nothing will read. I tried a CD this reads no problems at all.
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Does anyone have any clues to what has happened since yesterday as i used to be able to play every DVD i had on the external drive no problem. I have not installed any new software and there are no new updates to install on the OS and no firmware has been installed (all firmware is up to date).
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Regards
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Hope this helps you.
Robert

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My imac stopped reading dvd-r....says its a blank disc

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