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       # 2025-12-15 - Replacing My Laptop Optical Drive
       
       A month or so ago, i noticed my terminal would randomly lock up in
       the middle of typing.  Other parts of the system were still
       responsive.  In fact, i could open a new xterm and use it just fine. 
       I felt alarmed and it took me a while to correlate my problem to
       optical drive errors in the `dmesg` output.  Why was the optical
       drive being accessed at that time?  I still don't know, but i'd guess
       some indexer (tumblerd?) or volume manager was probing the drive and
       got hung up.
       
       It only happened once in a while, so i ignored it.  The drive
       continued to work fine.  I actually like optical media.  I wrote a
       CD-RW only a couple of weeks ago.
       
       A few days ago, the drive completely failed.  It would no longer read
       or write to any media.  My USB optical drive worked fine using the
       same media.
       
       I have had many laptops fail over the years.  It's a consequence of
       my style of computing where i use exclusively hand-me-down hardware
       left behind when family or friends upgrade theirs.  My state has an
       e-waste "recycling" program, which i use enthusiastically, because
       i like the idea of keeping toxic materials out of the water supply.
       But before i "recycle" a failed laptop, i will cannibalize the
       memory, storage, etc, including the optical drive.  So i have spare
       parts!
       
       This morning i swapped in a Panasonic DVD writer manufactured in
       2013.  It works great.  The only issue is that i cannot re-use the
       face plate from the failed drive because it's not detachable.  So the
       replacment drive has a silver face plate while the rest of the laptop
       is black.  It's like driving a repaired car with one door that's a
       different color than the others.  Functionality is fine, and the
       cosmetic dissonance gives the car character.  ;)
       
       tags: bencollver,technical
       
       # Tags
       
   DIR bencollver
   DIR technical