CD drive only recognized after 3-10 minutes wait

My Dell Inspiron 1150 running XP SP1 started to have this problem after
8 months usage. If I put in a CD (or DVD), I have to wait 3 to 10
minutes for the laptop to realize I put it in. During that time, I can
do everything except accessing the CD. There's no CPU usage spike.
Clicking the CD drive in Explorer or DIR the drive under DOS hangs. 3
to 10 minutes later, the CD turning noise is heard and I can access it
fine from that point on.

I didn't experience problems with slowdown of CPU, which is Intel
Celeron 2.40GHz according to Control Panel. I have no spyware because I
formatted C partition. At first I was using a Dell-installed Samsumg
CDRW/DVD SN-324F. There was no updated driver for it. After talking to
Dell support, they sent me another CD drive (not Samsung this time).
After a few days' usage, the problem happens again (not every time
yet). Device Manager or Event Viewer or Dell Diagnostics shows no
error. Installing/Uninstalling XP SP2 makes no difference. Ejecting CD
and putting it back in only delays this 3-10 minute wait.

Some BIOS info if relevant (pulled by a VBS script):
Current Language: en|US|iso8859-1
Installable Languages: 1
Manufacturer: Dell Computer Corporation
Name: Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A01
Primary BIOS: True
Release Date: 20040218000000.000000+000
SMBIOS Version: A01
SMBIOS Major Version: 2
SMBIOS Minor Version: 3
SMBIOS Present: True
Status: OK
Version: DELL - 27d40212
Any help is much appreciated.

Yong Huang
yong321 @ yahoo.com

My Dell Inspiron 1150 running XP SP1 started to have this problem after
8 months usage. If I put in a CD (or DVD), I have to wait 3 to 10
minutes for the laptop to realize I put it in. During that time, I can
do everything except accessing the CD. There's no CPU usage spike.
Clicking the CD drive in Explorer or DIR the drive under DOS hangs. 3
to 10 minutes later, the CD turning noise is heard and I can access it
fine from that point on.

Drive is bad if it happens with all disks. Disk is bad if only certain disks
do this.

Drive is bad if it happens with all disks. Disk is bad if only
certain disks do this.

Thanks. It must be the drive then. But this is already the second CD
drive from Dell. That's why I'd like to know if there's something else
wrong, some other hardware for instance. Anyway, I'll probably have
Dell send another one in shortly.

Yong Huang