Pismo running Panther won't mount retail install disk

I'm appealing to the vast wisdom of the collective--cuz, man, I'm stumped...
I just inherited a Pismo, which is currently running Panther 10.3.8. I don't have the original disks that came with it. I DO have a retail version of Panther, which I purchased for my G4 desktop.
What I want to do is do a clean install of Panther on the Pismo's current hard drive (get rid of all old files & get it ready to sell), plus I've got a new hard drive on order, which I'll want to install Panther on, too.
The problem is the Pismo just flat out won't recognize the Panther install disks. I hear it spinning and whirring away, bless its little heart, but then it just gives up. No joy. The Combo drive will recognize/mount/play any and all CDs and DVDs I've thrown into it--just not the Panther install disks.
I've upgraded the firmware. I've tried running the disks in OS 9 (which gives me a "this disk is unreadable" message). The Pismo meets all the system requirements (which it had to, since someone before me got Panther to install somehow!)
Any ideas?

The Panther CDs are practically new & spotless, no peripherals are connected, and the PRAM got reset when I updated the firmware.
It's quite possible I have a failing DVD-ROM drive, but unless I'm reading it wrong, it's not made by LG. My Combo drive says it's a Matsushita SR-8174.
So, great suggestions, but I don't think we've quite dialed it in yet...
In my travels through the Googlesphere, I found one woman's posting in some forum with the exact same problem. Unfortunately, no one could help her and she seems to have given up. Also, a few references to vaguely similar problems that might have been solved by removing the non-original RAM (I have a 64 MB and a 128 MB in the two slots--within Panther's requirements, but I am ordering a 512 MB).
So on my end, I'll try it with more RAM (though, as I mentioned earlier, someone managed to install and run Panther just fine originally) and I'll head to our local independent Mac repair specialists to see if they can swap out the optical drive & see if that's the problem. But I'd still like it if the solution came from the wisdom of this incredible resource. Y'all rarely let me down--thanks.
A related question: if I connect the Pismo to my G4 desktop & start it up in Target Disk Mode, can I put the Panther disks in my G4 and wipe the Pismo & install Panther from there...?

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