Is the disk drive broken?

I'm fixing up a family friend's 1st gen Macbook and am experiencing a problem with the disk drive. When I was putting in a CD it wouldn't go in, and it feels as if there is a disc already in there. In fact, I'm almost positive there is because when I received it her teenage son asked "By the way... is there a...uh... cd in there by any chance?"
I've tried everything to eject it. I've tried commanding it in the terminal, using the eject button, pulling it out with tweezers, etc, but nothing works. When I try to eject it the computer doesn't even attempt to, it just sits there silently and nothing moves. I'm pretty sure it's dead, but just wanted to know others opinions. It doesn't register that there is a disc in there either.
And if it is dead, would it be cheaper to buy an external CD drive or a replacement to install myself? She's not willing to pay to have Apple fix it, considering the reason I have it is to replace a LCD screen that she cracked and left for a year and a half. I'm a beginner considering I'm only sixteen myself, so if it's an easy repair I would be willing to do it if need be.
Thanks in advance.

See my post here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2290441

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