CD Drive unreadable in Windows

[Lisser]

I've been running Windows XP on my Mac laptop for almost a year with no problems. I use Bootcamp. The other day I tried to use a CD while in Windows and it didn't work - went to my device manager and noticed the CD drive suddenly wasn't working (said I needed a driver) It had worked a couple of days before. I decided to restore windows to a previous date that I knew the driver was there and worked - didn't work. So I undid the restore and was back where I started. I turned off the computer to worry about it today and when I turned on the computer and booted up into windows it went to the "gotta check the disc" screen and I tried to "hit a key" to keep it from going through the check disk - but it didn't respond. So I let it go through the cycle - only it took three hours (instead of the usual 5 minutes when I've gotten that screen before) then nothing happened. So I decided to put in the XP disc and try to repair windows - got me to the same screen - I let it cycle through AGAIN - and it took me to the install screen and gave me the message (which I've seen on forums) that it needed the ASMS file - when I tried to type in the location of the CD drive - nothing would change - had to hit cancel - it stopped installation and we were back at square one. Earlier (a couple of months before I decided to use Bootcamp) I had also installed VMfusion on the mac - so I do have the capability of booting into the mac and going into VMfusion and getting to "Windows" to at least read the tree! I know the CD drive is working because I can look at the contents of the XP CD while in the mac - so it's not the CD drive. Can anyone give me some specific instructions on exactly how to get windows XP to repair - or boot up...I'm using the original XP SP2 home edition disc - I just can't seem to get past the 39 minutes to go and "where is the ASMS" file dialog box. I don't want to reinstall and run the risk of losing my updated data in Windows (spreadsheets,etc) so thought repair would be better but don't know how to get the Windows install to read the CD drive. Sorry this was so long but wanted to give as much info as I could. Hope someone can help.