T61 DVD/CD-RW drive fails to read and crashes

Question

Hello Everyone, I hope people still visit this area of the forums!
I've highlighted and bolded the symptoms to make them easier to find.
I recently purchased a T61 6457-C15 on eBay, and have been in the proccess of setting up and customizing it to suit my tastes. When I recieved the laptop, it looked as though Windows had been restored to original factory state, plus some free software, so I proceeded under that assumption. First I used Windows Update to download all the updates that it could find including IE8. I wanted to have an anti-virus program running on my computer before I used a browser to access the internet. I ran IE8 and went straight to the Microsoft Security Essentials website and downloaded the Install program. At this point I tried to remove the pre-installed and expired Norton Internet Security using the built-in uninstall, but it failed. A message box popped saying that I needed to put the Norton installation disc in the CD-ROM drive so that the uninstall program could find a Norton support file. My computer did not come with any discs, but my mothe had bought Norton 2008, so I took that disc and put it in the drive. The drive started spinning right away, and the uninstall program found the file it was looking for in a few seconds. The support file directed me to the Norton website to get their removal tool, which removed Norton from my system in short order. Afterwards, I ran the Microsoft Security Essentials install program and got MSE running on my computer before doing anything else.
Then I went to the Lenovo support website and had it auto-detect my system. That took me to the support page for my system, where I went to the "Downloads and Drivers" page. I downloaded Access Connections and ThinkVantage Toolbox for Vista 32-bit (my OS is Vista Business 32-bit). I then used Lenovo System Update to retrieve all the updates it deemed neccessary from Lenovo, including those for itself and system components, both software and firmware. There were 35 or more updates suggested, and I trusted the software, so I started downloading them all. I'm not sure, but I think that a DVD/CD-RW drive update was included in the list, but I can't remember if it was auxiliary software, drivers or firmware. After Lenovo System Update was convinced that it had all the neccessary updates, I downloaded Revo Uninstaller and set about removing uneccassary and unwanted programs from my computer and trimming the startup list. I did not touch any Windows or ThinkVantage components, and I searched each program online, so I'm sure that I did not delete or disable any drivers or system files, or anything from Lenovo. I mainly removed Apple products and non-functional software from my system, including an integrated camera driver (my system does not have an integrated camera) and third-party programs that were already missing files or otherwise inoperable when I got my computer. Up to this point I had been using a gigabit ethernet connection to download software; I had not used the DVD/CD-RW drive except for the one time I specified earlier.
Now that I had my system set up to my liking, including personalization and power settings, I started to install my first program: Command & Conquer the First Decade from a DVD-ROM. When I put the disc in the drive and closed it, it took a few seconds for the drive to spin up, and once it did, it was constantly running at high speed and I could hear the reader constantly moving back and forth quickly. After a few minutes the disc's install menu finally appeared, so I clicked on the install button. I waited several minutes but nothing happened, so I tried to view the contents of the drive by going to My Computer > DVD/CD-RW drive (D, right clicking and selecting explore from the menu options. When I did that, the address bar of the My Computer window started to fill up with a dark gray progress bar and said "loading (D", I think with the drive or disc name after it. After it took several minutes to fill completely, nothing happened. I waited a few more minutes to see if anything would change, (nothing did,) I clicked on the X button in the top right corner of the window to close it. A few minutes and clicks later, the My Computer window was labeled as (not responding), and the window itself became grayed-out. I started Task Manager and tried to close the My Computer window, but the entire Windows Desktop disappeared along with it, saying that it would attempt to restart. Even Task Manager became non-responsive and quit after closing My Computer. After a few minutes of staring at my background (and nothing else), I ejected the disc, and Windows Desktop reappeared immediately and acted as if nothing had ever been wrong.
I checked Device Manager, but neither the DVD/CD-RW drive nor any of the ATA controllers were flagged; in fact they all said they were working properly with up-to-date drivers. I ran the ThinkVantage Toolbox diagnostics on the drive using a data CD, a music CD and a different DVD-ROM, but in each case the drive failed the tests and a message box popped-up saying that the discscould not be read because they were scratched or there was a hardware problem. I checked the discs both before I put them in and after I took them out, and they were not scratched; also, all of the discs are publisher-manufactured from a software or music company. I restarted my computer, booted the Rescue and Recovery option and Ran PC-Doctor from there. I ran the same drive read tests with the same failure results. The entire time the drive was behaving the same way it had when it first failed to read a disc. Next I removed and cleaned the drive both inside and out with a can of compressed air; I also cleaned the ultrabay itself. Finally I tried fixing the problem with Microsoft Fix It, but when it automatically ejected the drive and i put a disc in, the disc became trapped in the drive and Windows froze up like before. I had to restart Windows twice (once with a BSOD) in order to get the disc out. When the disc was removed the computer went back to normal operation once again.
Please help me, my DVD/CD-RW drive is a Matshi ta UJDA775, my operating system is Windows Vista Business and my T61's model number is 6457-C15. I have tried all the troubleshooting fixes and none have worked. I have tried updating drivers and using diagnostic software and they have not worked. I have tried disabling drag-to-disc burning and it has not worked. I have treid removing and cleaning the drive and that has not solved my problem. I did notice that the driver for the "Intel(R) ICH8M-E/M SATA AHCI controller" is the only related driver that can be rolled back, so maybe that might fix it. I'm also wondering if a firmware change caused this, and if so, if there is any way I can undo that. The only other fix I've heard of that I haven't tried is editing the registry, but I'm hesitant to do that. I haven't tried booting from the CD drive because I have no bootable CDs and I'm worried that my computer might get stuck in that mode. I'm hoping that someone can tell me what I can do to try to fix this problem, preferably without wrecking my computer. Thank you for taking the time to read my post.
P.S. Just adding a note; I went through both the Microsoft and Lenovo Update histories and the only related updates I could find were: ThinkPad BIOS update, Easy Eject utility, Intel Matrix Storager Manager driver for Windows (32-bit), and maybe one of the two Intel Chipset Support for Vista updates. I tried rolling back the AHCI driver but it had no effect.
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Answer 1

Well, my problem is fixed, and here's how. I had some trouble figuring out how to contact Lenovo technical support; online options directed me to the IBM support website, which was clearly designed for businesses. Selecting the "Call technical support" option on the Lenovo support website and then choosing my country gave me a 24/7 hotline number. After waiting about five minutes on hold, a nice young fellow by the name of "Tyrese" answered (I maybe misspelling his name), but the connection was so bad that we could barely hear each other. Although he semed eager to help, when I told him my problem the first things he suggested were simple, like cleaning the drive, However, when I told him all of my efforts, described above, to fix the problem myself and read him the log from the Rescue and Recovery diagnostic program, after he checked the error codes against his computer database he promptly replied that the only fix was to send out a new drive. I was happy to have gotten such a successful resolution to a support call in less than fifteen minutes; apparently, all the work I had done trying to solve the problem myself had paid off in a way. Unfortunately, although I had tried to spell out my address for him, some of it got left off of the address label, which caused some trouble in receiving the new drive. Once I got it, I installed it using the uninstall & remove (old drive), shut down, start up, insert & install (new drive) method that I referenced earlier in this topic. I've been using the new drive since then without any trouble, so I guess that the only fix was to replace the drive. Also, I noticed that the new drive was a Hitachi, perhaps a T400/410 or T500/510 Ultrabay Slim drive, which should help me avoid the problems that other users were having with the older Matshi-ta drives. I hope this description helps anyone else having a problem with the optical drives on the T61/61p.