Hmm ... internal drive problems would be quite distressing as it's an expensive, brand-new laptop. I don't own any external drives and I don't particularly want to buy one (at least not until after I've taken care of an external hard drive, a new turntable and speaker system, car insurance, and several other issues), especially if it's only with ripping and not playback or burning.

Speaking of which ... what does that mean? If the discs it's having trouble ripping play fine, and burned discs work fine ... and yes, the ripping issue isn't just with MTR, as I said I tried OSEx, Handbrake, and I think one other with the same results (actually Handbrake gave me completely unreadable files in general- couldn't open them in anything) ....