In 1994, multimedia discs—from encyclopedias to magazines—flooded the market, and felt like the future. It was fun while it lasted. At the time, it was the CD-ROM that had captured the imagination of ...

These days, very few of us use optical media on the regular. If we do, it’s generally with a slot-loading console or car stereo, or an old-school tray-loader in a desktop or laptop. This has been the ...

Everything fails eventually, but moving parts fail fastest of all– and optical drives seemingly more than others, at least in our experience. Even when they work, vintage drives often have trouble ...