Oh, I've got a program to read it, and the files open fine if they're stored directly on the laptop or opened from a flash drive. It's just that the folders containing the files on the CDs simply won't show up when I try to open them. Older discs seem to work just fine, though -- it's only lately that I'm having this problem.
The disc drive on the desktop's never been cleaned, though, so perhaps the laser's dirty and it's improperly burning the data onto the discs, making the files unreadable on other computers. *shrug*