I'm not sure I agree with your assessment of return on investment resolution choices.
The firmware upgrade took about 10 minutes. During this time: no donning the LED headlamp ( that terrifies my kid almost as much as when I wear tall white crew socks with shorts....see it on Amazon here : http://tinyurl.com/23b2wy), no gymnastics while disconnecting cords/cables in order to relocate computer from where it sits for normal work to where it must go to swap parts (it doesn't live on a test bench in its day to day life), no computer case to crack open, no power and IDE cables to remove/replace, no worries that the replacement hardware is DOA, and no encore of the headlamp-enabled gymnastics to return the 'puter to its normal location and reconnect all the stuff in back. At least a 30 minute drill...plus the extra that will come with the the inevitable cable management and dust removal drill that will will be an inevitable part of this. Few people like buying or opening shiny new boxes of hardware more than I do. My retreat position for most PC issues is "new hardware solves everything". Well, OK, maybe "new hardware or a reformatted HD and a reload of Windows) will take care of what new hardware won;t. I fully realize that even a multi-format, double layer DVD writer is essentially a commodity item these days..but I'm still not in a hurry to move to purchase and replace if there seems to be a good alternative. If it stops playing nice with DVD-Rs in the future...yeah, bring on the new box. On Jan 14, 2008 6:34 PM, Tony B <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Probably just a hardware failure then. Maybe intermittent; a dust mote > on the laser, or a crack on the circuit board. May come back soon, may > not. I personally doubt the firmware upgrade was responsible for > 'fixing' the drive. > > Again, you've gone to much more effort than I would have. I'd be more > worried about a _lasting_ repair and would likely have just replaced > the unit. > > ************************************************************************ * ==> QUICK LIST-COMMAND REFERENCE - Put the following commands in <== * ==> the body of an email & send 'em to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <== * Join the list: SUBSCRIBE COMPUTERGUYS-L Your Name * Too much mail? Try Daily Digests command: SET COMPUTERGUYS-L DIGEST * Tired of the List? Unsubscribe command: SIGNOFF COMPUTERGUYS-L * New address? From OLD address send: CHANGE COMPUTERGUYS-L YourNewAddress * Need more help? Send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ************************************************************************ * List archive from 1/1/2000 is on the MARC http://marc.info/?l=computerguys-l * List archive at www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ * RSS at www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml * Messages bearing the header "X-No-Archive: yes" will not be archived ************************************************************************
