I have an aging Tecra 8200 whose DVD/CDRW combo drive is getting finicky
about reading DVD's; I suspect the laser is failing. When it craps out on
a specific disc I've been using an external USB drive but would really
like to replace the internal one.

The drive is an SD-R2002 laptop format drive - the kind that Toshiba made
a swappable removeable drive bay/carrier for. 

I can get "removed from working laptop" drives for $25 or so from eBay;
and on reflection that might be the best option; but 2 things come to
mind: The drive design is old and has limitations (doesn't like +R or
multisession DVD's) and the replacement drive may be failing too. Second,
a DVD burner (rather than just reader) would be nice.

I'm looking to replace the drive with a minimum of hassle and hardware
modification (e.g. not soldering SMT components to cope with the drive
select stuff that Toshiba uses on their laptop drives).

Any advice from the Toshiba gurus?