i recently reformatted my hard drive. after reinstalling win98SE, i was in the process of installing basic software on the system. as you know, many softwares require you to restart the system after installation. after about 4 or 5 restarts since the reformat, my CD-ROM stopped reading CDs. at first i thought it just stopped auto-running. but then i double-clicked My Computer, only to find that the drive label just read D:\. it didn't even recognize that a disk was in the drive. i'm not sure if this is a problem specific to the CD-ROM, or if it has something to do with the OS. the CD-ROM is made by NEC, who doesn't provide costumer support directly, so i have to go talk to the distributer, who happens to be Best Buy. and i know those @ssholes won't be able to tell me what the problem is. i was wondering if its possible that the "eye" and the rotating motor inside the CD-ROM could have just died even though the CD-ROM still opens and closes. also, CDs don't seem to spin up at all when i put one in the tray and close it. what's the problem? thanks, Eric...