This is a Lite-On LVW 5045 HDD/DVD burner that recentlly decided that the inbuilt DVD burner wasnt going to read most discs, mostly all of them.
After some research and a hell of a lot of good help I have found that the DVD burner was a Sony and it is in all but the case, a standard Computer type DVD burner, IDE cable,power leads and selector jumper.
But the original was able to be set 'Region Free', something that I believe you cant do to the computer burners except with software like DVD43.
From reading CDFreaks forum, these Lite-On's appear to have a habit of the DVD burner failing.
Replacing it physically with another burner is not a major event as I have attatched but not properly installed one, but computer DVD burners have that '5 change' burn rule , so I was wondering has anyone ever found a way around it?
As its legal to buy and own 'Region Free' players and discs, and I have quite a few other region discs bought from around the world, I cant see I am breaching any acts by replacing a defective burner with another.
Forget about looking for a 'Genuine' replacement as Lite-On does not have any service/parts available for OZ.
According to the Queensland based distributer, If its under warranty it will be replaced but when the warranty is up, Your on your own, kiddo !!!
Am I guessing correctly that the '5 change Burn rule' is on the circuit board of the burner??
If so, and it was the laser that is defective, is it possible to take a working laser from something else and put it into another or do they do naughty things like connections and voltages etc to make it impossible?