Music cds don't play from my cdrom in 98 SE

Music cds aren't playing in 98 SE. The computer is reading the disks as all music files show up in Windows Explorer, however when I click on the files or try to run the CD through Real Player or Windows CD Player they won't play. I know it isn't a cable problem as games run fine and music CDs run fine in XP (have dual boot system 98 SE and XP). I don't believe it's a copy protection thing either as I've tried to run older music CDs as well as independent group cds that I know don't have any protection. Athlon XP 2000 processor, 2 gig Ram, Soundblaster16 PCI , Radeon 7200 64 MB AGP. Thanks for any help.

Bill