Went over to Danka and picked it up. Total repair cost was $1,094.94 which included a new DVD drive ($600), an 80Gig disk ($268.18) and a 2.5″ disk ‘enclosure’ (i.e. box) for the old disc. Labour was $72.22.
 Not cheap but less than buying a new one… or even buying a new desktop. On the otehr hand this is the *third* DVD drive in this machine so I think maybe there is a design issue somewhere that needs addressing! Still… I’m working my way through the recovery disks now and will then need to upgrade the OS via Service Pack 2 and then let Microsoft have it’s wicked way at the update site.
Maybe after all that I’ll be able to reinstall the software and actually *use* the damn thing 🙂
The Eclectic Interweb 