How does laptop optical drive know when it is closed?

[Ffats]

I have a problem with my laptop - the DVD-ROM drives seems to be deceased. It doesn't boot from disk (yes, bios settings are right on) and won't read anything under Windows. I get the dreaded "E:\ Drive is not Ready" message everytime.

I was thinking this might be due to the drive thinking it was still open?

[PAWO]

Laptop drives have a small switch in them that detects when the tray is clicked shut....I wouldn't know if that malfunctioning would cause that problem though, its highly possible, but other things couild be wrong too....like something with the laser/read assembly or something....