My CD drive isn't working properly

for the last week whenever I put a cd or dvd into the drive it takes it for about 10 seconds before it spits it out. I can hear that it's not even starting to spin the disc inside, no disc icon shows up on my desktop either so it's not even starting to read or recognize that there is a disc inside there.
I've had this laptop for almost 4 years now, does anyone else have this problem and have any idea how to fix it?
Powerbook G4   Mac OS X (10.4.5)  

They were pretty marginal CD/DVD drives to begin with, so 4 years later this is not surprising. Mine is 3 years old and acts like an old granny a fair bit. If you don't need to to this portably a lot then buy an external drive like a LaCie Porsche.
They don't cost much and they are so much faster you will appreciate the improvement. No more 1X DVD burns for example.

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