An optical drive reads information from an optical medium by measuring the reflectivity of the optical medium to determine the type of optical medium, setting read parameters associated with the determined type and attempting to read identification information from the optical medium to verify the optical medium type. If the identification information verifies the type of optical medium as determined by the measured reflectivity, the optical drive reads information with the read parameters. If the identification information is not readable or fails to verify the measured optical medium type, an alternative optical medium type read parameters are used to read the identification information. If the alternative optical medium type matches the identification information optical medium type, read parameters associated with the alternative optical medium type are used to read information from the optical medium and the user is provided a warning that the optical medium has substandard quality.