DVD-ROM Drive Not Responding

On all drives, there is a logic board, which controls how the drive communicates with the motherboard and the sequencing of the drive heads/optical reader heads. This could be bad. Sometimes if two cdroms/dvdroms are on the same circuit as master and slave the logic boards because of something peculiar to the manufacturer fight/conflict with each other and eventually one burns out. If you have lots of time here is a step by step to look at your drives.
If you are not comfortable with working inside your box reject this answer.

1. remove all cards except video
2. remove the cables to all drives (include the floppy)
3.replace the cable to the suspect drive and see if during the boot process it is listed as a dvd (or whatever it is)
4a. if it is, then check all the other drives one at a time and see if you can find one that doesn't show.
4b. if it doesn't show then proceed with the install using a bootable cdrom, and see if it can read from the cd. if it cant then look at getting a new drive.
5. If individually the drives work but not together then modify the primary/secondary-master/slave connections till you find one that works.
let us know what you find.

maybe your should try your drive in another machine if you have the chance. to see if the drive works..

good luck