As it happens I've been thinking about getting a hard disk / DVD recorder anyway, so my thoughts are to do that straight away, then find the receipt and get this one fixed and sell it on eBay. Or sell it "as is" if I can't get it fixed. Won't be able to do anything about this until Monday, since I'm away over the weekend, so any thoughts on a good and hopefully not too expensive DVD/HDD replacement? Liteon do one around that starts around 200 quid, but it's a Liteon recorder that just died so I think I want to look at alternatives.
Meanwhile the old Windows 98 machine I use for downloads crashed overnight, and from the thrashing and banging noises it's making as I run scandisk has a VERY serious drive C problem. Fortunately there's nothing on it I can't afford to lose, and I have a spare hard disk, so I'll have to swap drives and reinstall everything. After the weekend. Means I won't see Veronica Mars 2.03 for a few days, but it'll just have to wait.
So much for technology.