Problems with combo drive in my iBook

[Mark Kippert]

I've been having trouble with the combo drive (CDRW/DVD) in my 500MHz iBook.
In the last 6 months it has failed to mount CDs or DVDs, but the problem is
intermittent, so I can't send it back to Apple.

About 4 times so far it has gone dead for 4 to 6 days. Then suddenly it
works fine. Since the problem the problem is intermittent, Apple can't fix
it without experiencing the problem firsthand.

The new issue is that it is taking at least as long to rip an audio CD as
would to play it. Maybe longer. It seems like I recall being able to rip a
one hour CD in about one quarter that amount of time.

So I'm just wondering how long it should take to rip a typical music CD into
iTunes (using default settings).

-Mark