So, many moons ago, my CD-ROM drive (yes, really) started having problems. Not recognizing disks correctly, thinking that the drive had been removed from the system (like a flash drive) in the middle of an operation.

Finally, a couple months back, it just stopped recognizing disks altogether. Thankfully, I haven’t been using it for much. The main games I play are WoW and VASL, and neither of those need a disk in the drive. But, it’s a heck of a thing to be without.

So, today, I finally went out to get a replacement. After hemming and hawing for a while, I finally went for the most expensive option short of a Blu-Ray drive–$45. Only it turned out to be on sale for $35. ^_^

And a good thing too, because Smudge has been having some minor trouble with her DVD burner for a bit now. And while some of it was different, some of it also sounded like the same symptoms I’d had. When we got back, she started to print out a file. Font missing–sigh, dig out Corel for the font.

And the drive wouldn’t recognize the disk at all. Her’s had decided to go kaput at a most annoying time.

So, now both Micca and Haruhi have brand new Asus DRW-2014L1T drives. They can burn +/- R and RW, +/- R dual layer, DVD-RAM, and can use LightScribe, which allows the drive to burn a label onto the disk (assuming the disk can do that).

Farewell, Pioneer 12X, you’ve been a very good drive, being my first computer equipment purchase, lasting 12 years and six systems: Nausicaä, Little Washu, Washu, Isamene, Utena, and Haruhi.

As for Smudge’s TDK drive, it lasted three years and came with system-corrupting Roxio software. I’m not buying their products anymore.