Yes its a free warranty job otherwise I would do it myself (its a none standard hot plug and play power supply).

Tried using network drive but the DVD writing software i'm currently using seems to be fixed to using the internal one only (still playing with that option but the software came bundled with the laptop and might be hard coded to work with the drive). I also use my laptop as a mobile office.

in respect to option 3 I would have still use the old laptop just saw it as a good excuse to get a new toy lol ;)

This all come about because i was converting a Tape to DVD for a friend of mine bungee jumping. spent like a couple of hours encoding the footage doing the menu etc. tried burning it did't work So I put in down to the fact I should be using DVD-R not DVD+R so out i went and tried to buy them. The shop only had DVD-RW so there do I thought spent more hours trying to burn still no joy disabled any software add ons that could cause I/O problems like virtual Drives still no joy then after some head staching tried to read a PC cd lol boy did i feel silly.

before you say it i'll buy a dvd cleaner just in case lol now must remeber to do a full check list.

I'll wait until march (some bills be paid by then) I probley look at buying Vista compatable DVD burning software and leave the laptop for now. any ideas on whats good at encoding these days (want Blu-ray writing as an option)

I'll see about external DVD drives later Might just buy an external USB SATA caddy then i Can use my existing DVD drives at least then it does not limit me.