Further troubleshooting -
On the advice of one of my buddies, I slid the laser head assembly back to the edge of it's track, and powered on the unit to verify that it resets the laser to the center. It does, and now it's loading burnt games - BUT - load times are incredibly long, and it hangs (that is to say I give up waiting after 5-10 minutes) after a few of the intro cut scenes in the couple of games i've burnt for testing.
Anyone seem these symptoms before?