Optical drive doesn't...exist..?

Right, I use my iBook G4's optical drive probably on a more than daily basis, and until this morning it just stopped working. I inserted an audio cd into the drive, and it did all the normal things it does...whirring, making reading sounds and whatever.
However, when the sounds stopped, there was no disc icon on the desktop, on the finder, or on iTunes. I tried to eject the disk, but it simpily refused. Out of desperation, I restarted the computer, and tried the Command-Option-O-F command and then entered eject CD, which gave me an error message. I then proceeded to type Mac-Boot, and when I logged in, there was still no sign of the disk, and it still wouldnt eject.
So, I restart the iBook again, this time, holding down the trackpad button, and voila, the disc ejects! I thought it might have been a one off, so I tried another disc. Still no luck, it began doing the same things as before, and I still can't eject. However, when I went to my system profiler, it informs me that I have no Optical Disc reader on this machine...which is funny, its clearly trying to read discs when I insert one...but it fails...and the only way I can seem to eject a CD is by holding the trackpad button down during startup...and yes, i've even tried resetting the PMU....
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

That not exactly reply. I have same problem. After updating to 10.4.8 my superdrive is gone. When I check with system information, he said "no superdrive". Before thi update he work fine.

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