Dell Inspiron 600m CD/DVD-RW drive not working.

This laptop is about 4 years old. I tried installing The Sims Double Deluxe game today and the CD start spinning fine. Then, all of a sudden it was making odd noises and just keep spinning and then stopping. It did this for a few minutes and then it just stopped all together. I checked in "My Computer" and the drive isn't even popping up there. I also noticed a few weeks ago when I formatted my HDD and installed everything back on it, when I tried transfering all my music to iTunes after a while the drive would stop and it wouldn't transfer anymore and iTunes would freeze. If anyone can help me I'd really appreciate it!

By the way, here is my computer's specs if this helps:

System:

Microsoft Windows XP

Home Edition

Version 2002

Service pack 3

Computer:

Intel(R) Pentium(R) M

processor 1.70ghz

209mhz, 768mb of ram

Again, any help is appreciated!!