Inconsistant Operation of Replacement Superdrive For 17" Powerbook

[whiskers]

Hi,

I bought on ebay 2 new Dual layer Superdrives to use with 17" powerbooks. Mine is an early 2003 1Ghz G4 aluminium powerbook with an old superdrive which works.
We followed the Apple manual instructions carefully and replaced the drive. The new drive is always recognised, IE the computer sees it correctly as hardware and can use it but not consistently. We took the new drive out and put it in about 10 times. The drive either:

1. Does not accept any media, not even pulling the disc in.
2. Accepts media but ejects it.
3. Works but at best 10% of the time doesn't eject. (We hear the eject mechanism but disc does not come out.)

We assume there is a seating issue or that the new drive is not right for my model. There are 2 small flanges on the front of the new drive which are slightly different than the original and interfere with a black piece at the front of the disc slot. We tried shaving off the 2 flanges on one of the new drives and installing without the black brace, but with the same results.

The new drives work fine in my technician's Macmini

Every time we put the old superdrive back in it works perfectly.

My old drive is a MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-815
The new drive is a Pioneer DVR-K05

The vendor is offering a Mercury PBG4 as another option. We are confused and trying to find out if either of these is suitable for my particular 17" Powerbook.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Harold Herbert
Athens Greece
whiskers@hol.gr

PS here is the link of the item http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5214768906&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&rd=1