ESR not reading disks (black screen)

After a year or two i finally decided to try out my old ps2 which had fmcb installed from a while back. I have tried to make a backup copy of "The Sims" ps2 game as my old one has froze occasionally when loading saves. Anyway I "think" its a CD and not a DVD (yes i checked the disk and found no DVD logo before you ask :P) and followed the CD to DVD sticky tutorial that has been posted here word for word and burnt it to a shop branded DVD on the slowest speed. I then launched ESR and inserted the disk. Then after it read the disk at the main menu i get a "Invalid media in drive" message displayed next to the status bar and when i select the Launch CDVD button it freezes on a black screen. I've tried using the swap disk trick using the slide card that worked with psx back ups but to no avail.... please help!
Also, is there a simpler way of playing back up ps2 games?

You did patch it with the ESR software right?

I've tried some CD-2-DVD steps and couldn't get "some" games to work. It might be that "Sims" game. Maybe try patching a backup of a regular PS2 DVD with ESR software, burn it and try that out. If successful, try converting a different CD based game to DVD.

Yep I patched the individual files using dvdscan or whatever it was called. Then I patched the final iso using the program shown in the sticky guide. Yeah I'll maybe try MGS2, I think that says DVD on it anyway. Thanks for the help!

Well I don't know what the hell happened but my sims game now works! I re-burned it using a video link on youtube, i would post the link but im not allowed.... anyway thanks again guys!

It sounds like maybe you just had a bad burn the first time. Burning a disc doesn't always work; it can end up faulty and unreadable. Higher disc quality and slower burning speeds make a bad burn much less likely.