Hay kilgetty try updating the driver for the CD/DVD drive from the support.dell.com or if that does not fix it then do a complete PC restore.

Thank you very much for your suggestion, I was hoping for a little less extreme remedy but if thats what it takes.

Your Welcome kilgetty i think that the problem is with the drivers for the CD/DVD drive as the drive was able to take the disk in. You can also try checking for the driver in the device management window.[Click on  "START"-->"RUN"-->Type in "devmgmt.msc" and click "OK" to open the device manager window.].If u have any bangs (!.?,X) on the CD/DVD drive then just Right click on it and select "Uninstall" and restart the computer and if there is no bang or if it does not work even after this then try the latest driver in support.dell.com and the last step that you can try wil be PC restore.