Any other tricks I can try? Any suggestions for a
replacement
drive? (I'm not looking for anything fancy -- just would be nice
to be able to burn CD's on this machine as it has most of my
file archive attached to it)
If you're real lucky, you might be able to get ahold of a 16x Plextor CD-R
drive (no, I'm not about to let go of mine). Otherwise your best bet is
probably going to be to get a Acard EIDE-SCSI converter, as that is what
most people use. People are even using them for DVD-RW drives.
Zane