Loading Problems, Freezing & ISOs

Hello all, i am relatively new to the boards but let it be known that before i posted this i looked everywhere in the forums first... Heres my problem, I've been trying to play a few different games lately and I'm experiencing loading difficulties and the games freeze up. Both Chrono Cross and Vagrant Story freeze up at basically the same point and that could be from the condition of the CDs themselves. Chrono Cross freezes up after selecting "New Game" before you get to name the main character and Vagrant freezes when loading a specific area. Now Final Fantasy 8 on the other hand seems to experience loading problems at any given time and let it be known that the CD is in Mint condition. I figured I'd try making some ISOs out of the games and play them that way but some of the programs others of recommended on the forum(ie: Alcohol) dont make images of the games because of errors such as protection or other things. Maybe I'm not paying attention to a particular detail with those programs but any help and/or links would be greatly appreciated. Here's some details on my system and the drivers i use.

System: 1.8 gig AMD, 512 RAM, Nvidia GeForce2
Emulator: ePSXe 1.6, (video)Pete's D3D 1.75, (bios)41.bin

most likely cd scratches and stuff.

i would suggest iso. Try programs like cdclone. You can download a trial version for free online. search it on google.

Ill give it a try

mhl12: Thanks for the reply. I haven't tried that program yet so I'll give it a try.

To everyone else: I've found a work-around for Chrono Cross. If anyone can make a save state immediately after the first movie(after you name the main character) and send it to me, please reply and we'll work the details. It would be greatly appreciated.

Back to the drawing board...

Well CDclone didnt exactly help but ISObuster worked superbly. I was able to make an ISO out of Chrono Cross but not from Vagrant Story, most likely because the CD is old and somewhat worn. Unfortunately running the ISO did not solve my problem with Chrono Cross. It still freezes before getting to the name creation screen at the beginning. That leads me to believe that there is issues with the emulator and the game itself and not the read attempts from the CD. I remember someone mentioning that CC did not play properly on ePSXe 1.6 and would on an earlier version of the emulator. Can someone enlighten me as to the right version # and where to find it? Thanks guys.

SOLVED!

Well it is half true that Chrono Cross will only work with epsxe1.5. Apparently only the name creation screen freaks out on 1.6. I conducted a little experiment. I created a save state while using epsxe 1.5 later in the game and then copied the save file to the folder in 1.6 and then reloaded the game in the newer emulator. Unsurprisingly the game played fine and I've managed to tweak the video and sound settings to optimum performance and it looks pretty freakin sweet too.
If anyone wants to know what my settings are lemme know.