Help with DVD Burner

I'm ticked at myself....

Before I send this thing off to get repaired (hopefully), perhaps someone
here could help me. Here's the story:

About 2 months ago I purchased an OptoRite DD0401 8X DVD burner. It seemed
like a good deal at the time. : (

I installed it and everything was smooth. However, for whatever reason, I
didn't actually test it with a DVD at the time. I just assumed it was fine.
I didn't have a DVD handy at the time, but did test with a CD and everything
was cool.

Last night I purchased a DVD and wanted to view it on my PC. I popped in the
DVD and opened up Windows Media Player to play the DVD. When I tried to play
it, I got an error message saying the DVD was for the wrong region. At first
I panicked, but then figured I must have never set the region on this burner
so I go look and sure enough the properties for the burner say "no region
selected". So I select the USA, then click OK and try to play the DVD again.
Same error message - "Wrong region". So I go back to the properties for the
burner and it still said "no region selected" for the region! Damn! So I
select the USA region and notice that my number of tries (5 total) is now
down to 2!!! So I must have set it when I first installed, and then the one
time here.... So I figure it must need to reboot so I reboot the PC. No
dice.

So then I go on OptoRite's website and get the latest firmware files. There
were two of them, so I get the one, execute it and everything is fine. Then
get the latest one (I assumed they might need to be done in order, but now
looking back that was a mistake). When I executed the latest one, a dialog
box popped up and said "tray open" and then the DVD tray opened up! So I
tried to close the DVD tray (both with the button at first and then
manually) but the thing was not going back in! The light on the DVD burner
was flashing red. I knew something was hosed. I waited a while and the
computer had crashed. So I made the now known deadly mistake of rebooting
the PC. And now the PC does not recognize the drive as even existing. The
BIOS nor Windows XP Home recognizes the DVD burner as even being there.

So apparently the firmware is toast. What is really surprising to me is that
it is like the drive is not getting any power - the light on the drive
doesn't flash or anything when the PC is booting up. You'd think it would at
least do that?

I got an RMA from the place I bought it from (accupc.com) but since it's
been over 30 days they will only send it to OptoRite (3 week minimum
turnaround they said) and they'll repair/replace. I'm worried that they'll
say I screwed it up by screwing with the firmware, and not fix it.

Any way of fixing this thing myself?

Any way of fixing this thing myself?



Buy a Pioneer? -Dave