So like, yeah, it sure sounds like a Disc drive problem, if it wasn't for the fact that at first at least, the memory cards seemed to be directly linked to whether or not the games would load.

Initially, yes. That's how I figured it was the memory cards. Because at first, taking the memory cards out fixed the problem. It started acting up even without them a week or so after this problem started and of me troubleshooting trying to figure out what was going on. Basically, if I turned on th...

Normally I'd agree, but I have no other way to try and explain what's going on here and I am utterly baffled.

It's not the laser. I thought it was with my PSone that this issue originated on, but as soon as I plugged my memory card into the new PSX I got, the same problem cropped back up. It's 100% the memory card doing this, I just can't figure out how

Additional details: when the console refuses to boot a game with the memory card inserted, it will either boot into the BIOS before switching over to the "Please insert a Playstation CD-ROM" screen, or it will load the PS logo screen, then freeze.

Okay, so here's the issue. It all started when I accidentally shut off Crash 3 when it was saving. Big mistake, now the PS1 won't load the game when I boot it back up. I turn it off, remove the memory card, reboot, and the game loads just fine. I re-insert the memory card, and there's my save file. ...