Most of the time, I can’t open the DVD drive on my new Dell Inspiron laptop, running Windows 8. This happens regardless of whether there is a disk in the drive, or not. If I hit the ‘eject’ button on the drive, or right-click the drive in Windows Explorer and select ‘eject’, it makes a series of noises but doesn’t open the drive. I suspect software is locking it, rather than anything mechanical. It will usually open if I shut down the machine, then start it again.
I can’t find anything on this problem. Is this another ‘hidden feature’ of Windows 8?
Thank you!
Update: The drive was bad. It took Dell two more tries to get me a working drive, but now all is well. 
