My DVD writer had failed for over a year but I was not so interested to replace it since we used to use USB drive for file copying, it's just much faster, cheaper and more reliable and higher capacity as well.
Last night my kid wanted to read a CD from her school and so I checked the price of a new DVD writer, and to my big surprise, it's just $143 HKD!
At that price, I wonder why the factory would still produce it... you can always make a mouse which should be way easier, and then the cost is about the same!