"I would like to keep the cds but obviously would like to be able to play them on my system."
They're probably not CD's. Look at the music files on your computer and see what type they are. If you see files like FLAC, MP-3, APE, etc..., they wont work with your player. What you need to do, is burn the files to a blank CD and tell your burning software that you want to make a music CD. These will play on your CD player.