Valid DVD Drive could not be found

Had this problem for a whle. After switching on my Mac and leaving it for a while the DVD drive disappears and will not eject or even open up the tray. checking the system profiler shows "no burning device was found" and trying to play a DVD comes up with "no valid DVD could be found". I have the latest updates and firmware upgrades. Any ideas anyone?
G5 1.6GHz2GB SDRAM   Mac OS X (10.4.6)  

Thanks for the reply.. yes switching off and on again does normally fix the problem but only for a while. Hard drive is not set to "put the hard disk to sleep when possible". I even wondered if the display going to sleep might have been the problem but changing that to leave the display on all the time did nothing. It's like the computer forgets it has a DVD drive after a while

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