I'm having a problem with the superdrive on a macbook pro overheating when I'm using the 10.6 installation dvd. The first time it happened was shortly after I'd gotten the computer and I was downgrading it from 10.7 to 10.6. I'd started out attempting the first security level erasure of the internal drive and things went kaflooie. I was worried that I had or had created a broken machine as the sucker just froze after a while. Couldn't eject the dvd or do much of anything. Left it alone for a couple of days and then was able to boot from the install dvd, do a simple erase of the internal drive and install a system.
I decided I wanted to create a second system off an external drive and tried to do so using the fw400 port. I got a failure to install a little more than half an hour in with a message saying something about a dvd problem (the disc not the drive). Cleaned up the dvd and tried again. Same problem. Just to make sure tried the same process with the same target drive and installation dvd disc using my MacMini. Went fine.
I'm convinced the drive is overheating. I'm using either a logitech or targus laptop chill pad but it doesn't seem to be enough. I'm just wondering if anyone else had any other ideas. Are there better laptop chill pads around? Thanks, John