I was called by a friend of the family last evening to settle some issues he was having with his burner. He said it had suddenly stopped working. I figured maybe a driver issue, and this would be an easy $20, and I could afford a 560ti AND a haircut.

Queue up some stock IT footage of myself head in hands, frustrated out of my wits three hours into this 5 minute job. Drivers all check out (excluding one glaring issue I overlooked, more on that in a moment), DVDFab won't work. Nero won't work. Roxio won't work. Nothing will make copies of his discs and burn them. I'm boggled.

On a final installation reboot, the PC hangs at startup. Clearly, somewhere in the last three and a half hours, I done goofed and used something I should not have. I do the only thing I can think of as it approaches quarter of 11 at night. I volunteer to take it home and fix my misdoing, free of charge. I'm tired, frustrated, their home smells like death and pets, and it's the ethical thing to do.

Two hours later, a backup and fresh install, and I finally discover the actual problem.

The burner this man had been using was a Lite-on SHD-16P1S. The issue? The Lite-on SHD-16P1S is a DVD-ROM.

He's an astounding level of idiocy, but I'm the fool.