The drives in the Rev A-D iMacs and in the Lombard&Pismo are just plain crap. That is the secret to why they are all broken; not because of any usage patterns.

Just garbage. Replace it

Byrd, that is a slotloading optical drive, not one from a trayloader. the slotloaders in the later iMacs and TiBooks and stuff IIRC were different than the trayloaders used in the rev A-D iMacs and Lombard/PDQ.

And the Wallstreet.. not even going there.