I discovered a company on EBAY that repairs these for less than $200. It turned out to be in Richardson, a suburb of Dallas, and I took it in this morning and had it back REPAIRED this afternoon.
Installed it when I got home and loaded up 6 cd's with no errors!
They offer a 90 day warranty and had a 100% rating on EBAY. I will continue updates on the performance of this repair.