iBook G4 inop optical drive

[Ristin]

800Mhz 256 ram OS X 10.3.9
Insert a disk, the drive spins up, sounds like its reading, then stops. No icon on screen and can't eject disk using F-12 key. Show CD is enabled in Finder. Drive is listed in system profile. To eject the disk I have to reboot with option key pressed or boot to open rom. Eject CD works in open rom as does F-12 key when booting with option key pressed.
typing df in a terminal window shows me
/dev/disk0s9
devfs
rdesc
<volfs>

This iBook was given to me and I was told the drive didn't work, but I have to try messing with it anyway. Drive is probably kaput but is there anyway this could be a software problem like missing drivers, device not mounting?
I know next to nothing about apple computers. The last one I owned was a //c

Not knowing if this would even do anything, I typed
mount /dev/cdrom
and I get back
mount: /dev/cdrom: unknown special file or file system.
Anything else I can try or is it time for the 46 step process to replace the drive?

 

[havokalien]

Try a disk cleaner

A cd lens cleaner could fix it. Dirt on the lens can confuse the drive. If not time for replacement.

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

My G5 tower had just stopped burning anything, so has my 2006 Intel iMac, and before that I had a 2007 MBP 15" that took three different optical drives being getting replaced. There used to be a joke amongst us Apple techs that there was a reason that the brand MAT*****A had ***** in its' name.

EDIT: oh come on MR.com, I even misspelled that word and you still comment it out. grumpygrumpy