[geeks] Sun CD/DVDROM drive attrition

[JP Hindin]

I seem to have horrifically bad luck in keeping working Sun SCSI CDROM 
drives. Drives that worked a year or two ago suddenly stop working while 
sitting, but I don't see similar levels of failure on non Sun devices. I 
have a lot of old SGIs with working CDROM drives, it appears, and 
certainly the ATAPI ones seem to work forever.

The most recent symptom of failure - although I've seen it before on at 
least three drives - is the drive refuses to accept any media, even 
"none". Pop the tray out, insert a disc and return the tray. The drive 
appears to read for two or so seconds, and then ejects the tray. It will 
do this even if the tray is empty.

Do I just have really bad luck, did Sun buy some crappy devices, or am I 
missing something?

  - JP