Unusual lag times with cd-roms?

[pushVTEC]

I've been experiencing some weird things with both my cd-roms the past few days. CD's read extremely slowly, (20 mins to copy a cd) and when the PC POSTs it takes a good 30 seconds sometimes for them to be detected. So first thing i think, bad IDE cable, so I replace it.... Nothing, same results.. Next thing I think, bad settings in the bios...But those check out... Next I checked to see if everything was configured ok in system devices...everything checked out. What else could it be? I don't think both my cd-roms just crapped out just like that...but I guess anything's possible... any other ideas?