I've had the drive for a week, backed up the latest games fine, because the cd's are still clean, the issue is when i backup my old games, it has a light scratch, plays fine on the system.

When I do the read/rip from the Samsung Kreon drive, at about 4%-30% into the game, depending on the games I try to backup, I always get the error message "cannot be read" and/or "fill in sector w/zeros" to go on with the ripping.

Is this a common issue, anyone else experience this?? any tips?

I'm using the latest Kreon Firmware which is 1.0 and XBox Backup Creator 2.8.

Its not common and if it happens theres a problem. Ive done my entire collection (~20 games) and its happened to me only once (the only problem Ive ever had reading or writing).
I lent out Oblivion and got it back covered in fingerprints and light scratches, grr..., in the meantime I had flashed my drive so I wanted to back it up. I cleaned it off the best I could and tried to rip it but it failed at 4% and said it couldnt be read. I didnt know what else to do so I got out the old windex and a pillow case and buffed the living shit out of it. After that it ripped without any errors but the backup isnt really reliable, it gives me the open tray error Id say 1 in 20 times I insert it into the running xbox. The original still works great though /shrug. Just my experience.

get a can of 'MR. Sheen' and spray it on a cloth and lightly wipe down the disc. it shines the disc up well and lets the PC read it. has worked for me countless times

i'm not sure if they have it here in the states..

I found that heat was affecting my drive and success of rips. I moved the drive away from heat sources in my case and I now have more successful rips.