Play the idiot. I've gotten lots of old dated hardware replaced for free.
"Hi! This cd rom thing stopped working on my computer for some reason. I'm not sure why, either."
"Have you changed anything on your pc recently?"
"No, I barely use it at all. I just turned it on one day and it wouldn't read cds."
"Okay."
*waits*
"Here you go. We don't carry the unit you had so we will replace it with a slightly better one for no charge."
"Cool! Are you sure this will work?"
"I don't know why it shouldn't. If it doesn't, bring it back."
And that was how, after multiple times, I got a 4x cd rom removed from an old 150mhz machine upgraded to 12x to 24x to 40x. I just took each replacement to a different branch of the same retailer with the same story and ended up coming out wiht a really nice cd rom... considreing that the original 4x was one I found ALREADY BROKEN in a really old machine someone gave me.
Play the idiot. You can get mad free stuff.