It'll read them just fine. I have never once seen a "pure" DVD drive. Even the drives in DVD players are typically capable of reading CDs.
At any point did you actually put the discs in the drive to see if they would work?
I faithfully backed up all my files from my old PC onto CDs. The software for my old PC is on CDs. The fan stopped working on my old PC and the hard drive is fried.
My new PC has ONLY a DVD read/write drive. (Didn't realize that when I bought it...)
Any suggestions as to how to transfer files and software from the CDs to DVDs so I can use and read and install them? I am not technically sophisticated so I would be grateful for easy-to-follow instructions. Thank you!

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