My HP 630(?)i DVD burner has been having problems and I want to know if there is anything I can do before I try to track down my warranty stuff.

For a couple weeks, the drive wouldn't open correctly. For example, pressing the eject button would move the drawer to seemingly random locations.

Then for a couple weeks it wouldn't even open when i pressed the button.

Then I opened my tower up, reseated the connectors, and now the drawer opens and closes on command(by button) but does not seem to respond to the operating system.

Any suggestions? I'd be happy to provide more details if needed, but I can't remember the exact types of mounting or access errors off the top of my head. I think I would see a "no media found" when accessing the drive, even though I believe it mounted fine. I'm running Suse 9.1 personnal.

I have seen the DVD burner that you have before (I believe). If I remember right, the problems with opening the DVD drive were all becuase the buttons on the outside of the system case didn't line up properly with the buttons of the DVD drive. (I don't know if this is the case for you). The computer runs Windows XP, so I don't know the answer for linux, but from my limited experience with DVD burners, the problem is, more often than not, the software. I'd try a couple different burning programs before you try replacing the drive. As much as I hate having to pay for software, Nero has worked well for me in the past for Windoze. If the trial works, and you still don't want to pay for a serial no, maybe you can get one some other way...

Can you read media in the drive?

When I try to access the drive (with disc inserted) I get a "medium (or media?) not found" error.

Have you tried using a knoppix-like LiveCD to rule out software errors? If it doesn't work from there, I'd be on a hardware fault.

I'm not exactly sure what "knoppix-like" means, but I do have the live CD from my suse 9.1 personal. I'll give it a try, Thanks!