Grinder wrote:

They're probably counting on that. Be firm with them. Explain that you
computer is vital to you, and that they need to send out a replacement
CD-RW which you will install. This may well fix the problem, but at a
minimum, should diagnose the problem.

For added leverage, you should swap the cable and/or drive yourself
indentify the faulty component. Hopefully you have a friend that has a
CD and cable that you can use for a short period of time. With this
diagnostic down, you can be more specific in what you require from Gateway.

Yep, I plan to swap the cable sometime in the next day or so.
I'll try the drive as well (if I can borrow one from somebody),
but that probably won't conclusively isolate the problem to the
drive. (I.e., it could still be a mobo issue with the
particular drive or could be a system power issue that isn't
stressed by the newer (possibly lower power) drive.) I'll post
what happens when I run my next set of experiments.

Mike