Optical drive for G3 PowerBook (aka Pismo)

Hi all,

I bought a G3 PowerBook for my g/f for Christmas, she's started trying to use the CD writer (Sony CRX830) now but it keeps failing to write discs from any of iTunes, iPhoto or Toast lite.

The message on screen is something like "failed to burn disc due to an unknown error". The only info I can find in the Apple Support knowledgebase relating to that model of drive is to do with iTunes on Windows!

That said it is a fairly slow drive so I was thinking, when I pop it out of the machine it looks fairly standard in terms of laptop drives. Will pretty much any laptop-sized optical drive fit and work?

TIA
8bit

OK further to the above...

having done some hunting about it looks like most standard slimline laptop drives will work fine in my powerbook, however I'm told the reason i can't burn discs from iTunes or iPhoto is cos the drive doesn't have Apple firmware on it. I was pretty sure I couldn't burn a disc with Toast lite tho. Anyone know anything about this apple firmware stuff?