CD inserted into drive, not showing up and not ejecting.

I inserted a disc into my optical drive, it sounded as usual as if it was reading the disc then suddenly stopped and the audio disc was not read by iTunes, shown on the desktop or in the finder window. I have attempted the following:

I have held down the eject button, the eject icon shows up on the screen but nothing happens.

I have attempted to open the disk utility.app, this application loads the window and states that it is gathering disk information, the disk drive whirs up and makes noise for a bit however the disk utility app just keeps saying "gathering disk information" forever... quite literally. This application is also completely unresponsive and I must forcequit.

Lastly I've tried to use the firmware but am unable to access it. Any advice or ideas is greatly appreciated.