Think I may have cracked this problem, at least from a Windows/EAC perspective.

Easy enough if it works for all, which I'm hoping it does!

No copying CD's, cloneCD, post-its & marker pens etc...

Cactus seems to prey on the CD-Roms' error correction.

First time I tried it the error correction monitor always hit 8 red 'blocks' before moving on & the cd took at least an hour to rip.

2nd time I managed to rip the entire album in EAC with no problem, here's how I did it:

Go to 'drive options',
'extraction method' tab, set it to burst (ie no error correction)
Rip as normal...(w/out track12)

EAC warns you that this is the most 'insecure' way of ripping a CD, but if ripped on the same day as bought, there shouldn't be any errors anyway & the 192 vbr sounds crystal to me...

As to why some drives do/don't rip it I have no idea, differing level of C2 EC support I'd guess...

HTH

P.S. Could people verify this fix? As one case is hardly proof positive, preferably with more than just Kings of Leon...