replacing superdrive MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-85J

Hi, I have finally given up with my slowly worsening superdrive, like many others it seems - cant burn anything now, though had a brief respite with compressed air. thought it was just dirt.
however it carried on sickening.
i am now ready to replace the drive!
so...
im seeing options to get panasonic / matshita UJ-85J drives but with different suffixes i.e. UJ-85J-C and -UJ-85J-D etc

i really want to have a simple straight replacement (of course!) but am a bit worried as i don't know what potential dangers those little suffixes may bring (firmware issues etc?)

does anyone know?

many thanks for anyones time in advance!

current poorly drive: MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-85J:

Firmware Revision: FBZ8
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipped/Supported)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -R DL, -RW, +R, +RW, +R DL
Burn Underrun Protection CD: Yes
Burn Underrun Protection DVD: Yes
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO
Media: No

mac book pro 17"

The Matushita drives are the way to go. I had an LG drive in my MBP from the factory. It was much louder in operation and went bad in very short order. They replaced it with a Matsushita (which is the same brand I had in my original Core Duo MBP) and things have been great ever since.

The swap is relatively straightforward if you are handy. Complete instructions (and the needed parts) are available on iFixit: iPod, iBook, & PowerBook Parts and Accessories.

well i appreciate the reply but matshita
(system profiler spells it this way - is it a joke - did someone just ad MAT and A?)
drives, or at least these uj85-j ones, cant be that good or they wouldn't need replacing.
it does seem to be common.
or is it just that the others are even worse!!
i do hope your replacement lasts though!

I'm up for doing the replacement but want to know if im replacing it with the right one - hence my question - what do the suffixes mean? or is it safe to ignore them?

anyone?!

(just had to switch to wireless as cable connection cut off - again- oh dear my powerbook G4 seemed so much more stable and bug free)

thanks for reply though

I was having problems with my Superdrive trying to burn DVD's with the Burn Folder option available in Finder.

I kept getting an error when trying to burn. When I tried burning I received the following "Error Code 0x8002006D". Thought I had a bad SuperDrive.

Turned to the application Disk Utility in the Applications folder and now it's burning DVD's. Guess it was a software problem and not a hardware one.

Not sure if this is what you were having. Instead of replacing it try this route.