[richlevy]

Well, I went from having a CD-ROM for the Linux machine to having a CD-ROM, CD/RW DVD-ROM, and CD-ROM DVD-ROM.

I had to reinstall Linux due to my messing about with it trying to fix a wi-fi issue. In the middle of the re-install, the system locked up. After that, the install disk appeared to stop working.

I now believe that I incorrectly attributed the issue to the CD-ROM drive dying. The real reason was probably that the lockup left the hard drive with unusable or insufficient swap space, so the install was trying to do everything from memory.

So I bid on a $10 ($20 with shipping) used CD-ROM DVD-ROM combo for the front bay of my computer. While this was going on, I got impatient and went to pick up a used drive from Second Source. The drive they had did not fit, but they did sell me a new CD-RW/DVD-ROM for $40.

At the same time, the E-bay auction finished and to my surprise I won. So after spending $60 I now have the original CD-ROM drive for the side bay, the new CD-RW/DVD-ROM for the side bay, the original floppy drive for the front bay, and a CD-ROM/DVD-ROM for the front bay.

The front bays are modular. The side bay uses a small plastic 'tray'. I only have one of those and they screw onto the drives, so unless I buy another I can only use one item without going to the trouble of swapping the tray. Not that I would need the CD-ROM as anything but a backup anyway.

This does make it easy to make CD-R to CD-R backups. Spending the extra money for the DVD's also means the process isn't an entire waste since my wife did ask me before if we could use the PC as a DVD player. Now we can.

BTW, I also upgraded to Ubuntu 7.10 which rocks. The wi-fi install process is much easier.