I feel your pain
I've had to waste a lot of time on MS issues and I'm fully legal.
Now I've got a Dell system and the CDRW skips when I play CD's now. So it needs replacing. I'm under warranty so they should ship me a new one but I've put off calling because I detest talking to those friggin' Indians that I can barely understand.
I'm going to have to bite the bullet and do it soon, though, because it may be affecting my backups, too.