Some advice.

Ok, so my lovely iMac's superdrive has conked out on me and needs replacing. I've been quoted about £200 to fix it by a local Apple Dealer/ Maintenance place in Paris, but I was planning on getting an external hard drive as I'm in sore need of backing up (a Western Digital My Book Pro Edition for about £114). Problem is I can't afford it all. I could get a cheap external burner for about £75-£100 and the hard drive, but i'm kind of not feeling having an extra box on my table, and really love the slide in motion of the superdrive. So, my question:
Fix Superdrive and wait a while to back up, or go cheaper, less aesthetic route and be all safe and sound asap.
Hmmm...

You'll probably end up fixing the Superdrive eventually anyway, right? Save the money you'd spend somewhere down the road and just do it now. Backing up is important, but it can probably wait at least a little longer until you can afford an external hard drive. (Plus, if it comes down to it, just buy a pack of DVDs and back your important stuff up manually.)

You know, that's what i was doing when my drive died, burning back up dvd's, so, the wheel turns. Yeah, you're prob right, i would really like my mac all whole again. Thanks.