Scary Computer Revealed!!!

Dex finally burned out the cd burner! He is an itunes cowboy junkie, like someone else in our family, and I knew it was just a matter of time. So...I go to staples and buy a dvd burner. I was told cd's sound much better burned on the dvd burner. Great, found one and next step is to install. Well, foolish me, for some reason I thought there would be instructions on "HOW TO" and guess what??? NOT!!! You see they expect you to either already know what you are doing or you are buying the part to have your IT savvy friend put it in or you just take the CPU in and let the pro's do it. Step #1. Google the job you are trying to do, before you unhook everything. Of course, you will not cover all the obstacles that you may incur, but at least you will have something to go by. Step #2. Make sure you have a backup support system, I have several, but could not reach them, Uh Oh.
Here is a 57 year old women, at the kitchen table standing on a rubber mat (I am very static),with screw drivers,canned air and flashlight ready to take this on. I finally figured out how to get the cover off, woohoo, then my first mistake, blowing the inside out with the canned air. I created one of the biggest dust storms in history. I had to wait 15 minutes for the dust to settled before making my next attempt. I was surprised at how simple everything looked inside. Lots of empty space! It took me a minute to realize the burner had to be pushed from the inside to the outside, started to do that, but this large "ribbon thing" seemed to be attached to it. Was there just a holder strap with the ribbon through it or was it hooked to this burner box. I made my frantic calls to everyone to no avail. Well I wasn't going to pull on it, or poke it, might damage something. Thought maybe if I pulled the burner out I would be able to see what the issue was. I tried looking with the flashlight, but it was still to dark in there to see. Finally I pushed some more and the strap thing(I thought was a holder),which was a bar with pins that plugged in, pulled out and it was finally free! I installed the new one in reverse and away we went, back to itunes and making great cd's for our friends and Dex's fellow musicians. I have to tell you, I had a great sense of accomplishment after doing this and will be putting in some more memory and a new VGA card soon! That computer is not so scary after all!