cd/dvd issues

My sister is having a serious issue with her cd drive and her dvd drive and her computer. The problem is as follows.
She installs various games on her computer iwthout a problem using either drive. After installing and restarting, when she tries to run the game out of either drive, the screen goes black like the game is loading and after about 5 seconds crashes out and goes back to the desktop.
Now she has found 2 games here that do work,
1.Total Aninihilation Kingdoms by Cavedog.com
2.Age of Empires 2 by Microsoft

Games that do not work include
1.Riven by redorb
2. Quest for glory, Dragonfire by Sierra
3. The Messenger by dreamcatergames.com
4. The Crystal Key by dreamcathergames.com
5. Darkened Skye by Simon&schuster

Her system is a HP Pavilion a250n with:

Processor: Pentium 4, 2.6Ghz
RAM: 512MB
OS: Windows XP Pro
DVD: HP DVD Writer300n
CD: Mitsumi CD Rom FX 48++W

any ideas/hints/suggestions/info needed would be appreciated

X-posted in hardware