How do I find a "back door" program or process to re-start my cd drive?

Question

Hi all,
I have an i Mac that I am attempting to update to a Panther in order to be able to install and use some of my more recent program purchases, including Quickbooks 6 and Turbotax Premium 2005, which require at least a 10.2.8 upgrade to install and run. Within the last week, my cdrw drive in my i Mac has died and we have tried everything we can think of to do or could find ideas for in Macos trouble-shooting books to try to get the upgrade to install. Because the drive isn't working, it would not boot directly under any method, including trying starting from shutoff holding the c, or the Control and c, to get it to boot; it would ask for my administrator password, then tell us to start; then back to the password...an endless cyle.
When none of that worked, we tried loading the upgrade to Panther from my external drive Iomega CDRW but it put us into the same cycle; the man who set up my system (he lives out of state and cannot help us to set it up) said that the 10.1 operating system will allow us to only boot or install the upgrade from a working crdw drive in the i Mac itself.
Because of my current financial situation being what it is, I cannot at this time afford to pay a Mac tech at $90.00/hour or more to work on it, that option is a very last choice on my list I need this upgrade to be able to install the Turbotax to bring in some income.
I have been told by people who are computer techs at Intuit that there are back door programs available that will allow us to install or write a temporary program to re-start my cdrw drive in the i Mac for long enough to do the install and programs I need and for us to make sure everything is operating properly. Can anyone help me out with this? Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.
Also, just a couple of minor questions:
1. Am I able to install regular software programs, such as Turbotax, without issues, from my external cdrw?
2. How do I get directly in contact with apple tech help (live help, chat) to get their input as well? I'm not sure how to get there.
Thank you,
Old Native Soul
i Mac   Mac OS X (10.1.x)   Iomega CDRW 52x24x52, HP printers

Answer 1

There are no "backdoor" programs that will make a defective optical drive work.
If your iMac has a Firewire port you can use an external Firewire optical drive to boot the Panther Installer Disc provided the external optical drive is bootable. Otherwise, you will need to replace the internal optical drive. If your iMac does not have a Firewire port, then I believe you are out of luck unless you can get the Panther Installer Disc to boot from a USB external drive - doubtful at best.
If you can't afford to have someone fix your computer, then you should consider fixing it yourself. You can find repair manuals here: http://www.whoopis.com/computer_repair/. You can buy a bare optical drive most anywhere on the internet. Other parts resources include www.welovemacs.com, www.applerescue.com, www.shreevesystems.com. You can also find user review information at www.xlr8yourmac.com.