dell + drive door won't respond

[Jack Howarth]

Larry,
    Is the drive in question a Samsung CDRW? I know Dell shipped a
bunch of systems with CDRWs with firmware issues that arose under either
Windows or Linux. Basically the CDRW would disappear after a few hours
and no longer respond to the eject button. Dell has updated firmware 
for these drives on their web site as Samsung SW-248F 48X CDRW, v.R603, A02.
                    Jack