macbook pro does not see internal DVD/CD drive

Our macbook pro 4,1 running OSX 10.8.5 (12F45) no longer seems to recognize the internal DVD/CD drive.

Both the ATA and Disc Burning listings for the MBP say there are no devices of that type listed.

This started when my wife attempted to play an audio CD-R which I had burned on my macpro 1,1 running Snow Leopard and using Itunes 11.4. The icon for the CD did not show up and the disk didn't play. It also would not eject. (She had just successfully played another audio CD-R which I had burned on my macpro). After some research, we found that the 'stuck CD' is a common problem and the solution that worked for us was cold starting with the trackpad button depressed while shaking the **** out of the computer (and giving it a few 'love taps') .... several tries without the physical encouragement failed before adding shaking ... then it ejected the CD.

So .... we were able to remove the offending CD, but when I tried one that had worked before, a commercially produced CD, it got stuck too and required the same draconian procedure to get it to eject.

I re-cold started the MBP with an empty optical drive and then brought up the Hardware Overview. It said there was no ATA device and no Disc Burning device. The device itself must be getting power, because when the CD was stuck, you could hear it trying to do something when you hit the eject key, and when we finally discovered how to force ejection, the mechanical sound associated with disc ejection could be heard.

I seriously doubt that the optical drive has just stopped working. Instinct tells me that the attempt to read an audio CD that was somehow incompatible caused the opsys to be configured in a way that makes it unable to communicate with the optical drive directly. Any suggestions on how to investigate this, possibly from the Terminal, would be greatly appreciated.