My CD drive hasn't worked in about 8 months. I was burning CDs in a hurry and pulled it out because it was taking too long (probably an average amount of time). Im running a laptop (Toshiba Satellite A505-6965) that uses a slot drive.

Now my computer doesn't accept CDs. It used to pull them in but it doesn't anymore. Ive heard it make odd noises a few times but thats it. The slot is these spongey things and Ive managed to peek into the drive with a flashlight and theres nothing in the way, really.

Could someone explain the mechanics of what happened and if it would be possible to fix it? If itd be possible to fix it through Linux that would be great since I keep getting the BSOD (0x0000007B) and am going to try reinstalling Windows 7. But I can't really do that since I don't have a USB drive larger than 2 GB (Windows is about 4 GB) so Im relying on Linux ATM.