Yes, I was no doubt bummed. It happened right after I attempted to erase an old scratchy cd-rw disc. Hey, are you active on the cdfreaks forum? I think you tried to help me there with this very issue, lol
I definitely miss my ole trusty Yamaha...when I purchased it in '98, I was able to justify the high price, but I just couldn't do that with the recent model versus these cheap Lite-On's.
I've heard in other forums, however, that Lite-Ons are manufactured to last only about a year (under heavy use, I presume). I guess that depends on different manufacturing variables and a little bit of luck.
The sad thing is I probably burned less than 100 cd's w/ my last Lite-On.