Question : Problem: How to diagnose problem with CD/DVD drive?

The Samsung TSSTcorpCD/DVDW SH-S183A drive in my Vista PC is giving problems. It accepts a DVD and spins seemingly forever at high speed. Windows Explorer stops responding and eventually I have to manually eject the cd and end the process in Task Manager.
I have updated the firmware of the drive to the latest version SBO3 but htat has had no effect.
In Device manager there is nothing amiss. How can I diagnose whether this is a hardware problem of the drive or a software problem of the PC?

Answer : Problem: How to diagnose problem with CD/DVD drive?

reseat it's connections, and verify in the bios if it is seen.  if not, it is bad, and should be repalced.
otherwise, run this : http://www.dougknox.com/xp/scripts_desc/xp_cd_dvd_fix.htm