Possible to disable Superdrive without physically disconnecting cables?

Hello. I'm using a late 2008 UBMBP 15". I hardly use the superdrive at all, and I was wondering if there was a way to disable/enable via software or kext work as opposed to physically disconnecting the cable.

Will it help with battery life, being disabled?

BTW, I noticed that the EFI and superdrive updates that came out today eliminated the noise when shutdown/startup/sleep and sped up those times on my machine.

Thank you.

 

Thanks for the replies.

My wife has an Air Rev A, SL. Shutdown and sleep and awake from sleep are almost instantaneous. My macbook pro lagged b/c it was always checking the superdrive, which is another reason why I wanted to disable it because I wasn't using it.

I don't know if the new EFI / Superdrive update which eliminated the sounds the drive was making is actually doing anything more than just getting rid of the noise...

 

Nope. It has the stock PATA drive, 80gb.