cd drive not working

My husband has a dell Inspiron laptop, with Win XP pro installed and for a couple of months his cd drive seems to have stopped working, as soon as he puts in a cd the cursor changes to a cd shape and makes a buzzy sound for 3-5 secs, then goes back to a normal cursor and thats it. when he checks in my computer to see the cd drive, there is no recognition of a cd being in the drive.