Is my brand new DVD drive dead already?

alright i got a big problem, and i will try to explain the events that lead up to this point.

my DVD drive is a Samsung SH-S223F SATA drive and im using windows 7:

1. its new and it worked great for a month
2. i reformated and installed the RC windows 7 because i had the Beta before, everything worked and installed with no problems with DVD drive.

3. then after installing windows 7 and i shut down the computer forgetting the installation disc inside until the next day.

4. on the next day i removed the win 7 install disc and attempted to install mass effect game (which i installed twice before with no problems) ---- but i got distracted for an hour with other installations and updates and formatted a separate hard drive and left the mass effect DVD inside the drive and after a couple of restarts i noticied a strange noise come from the drive which wasnt normal, as though its unable to read the disc easily. like separate pulsed scratched or trying to start a dead car engine.

5. i then went forward with the installation and at 40% it stopped and freezed and i got an error saying it cant write a specific file or cant read it, something like that concerning saferun.exe and i searched about the error and its apparently a common problem with mass effect discs. but this is the first time it happened to me and i had that disc for a year.

6. tried installing again and again and it doesnt work. something happens but with XML errors this time!

7. i tryed other game discs and data discs and now it doesnt autorun and after a couple of tries with different discs, it stopped recognizing them and stopped spinning completely and stays silent.

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8. i tryed solving the problem by, uninstalling it in device manager, and updating firmware and deleting upperfilter in regedit (which i couldnt find in my win 7) and now i just gave up

its a new drive and i didnt expect it to act that way. and all this happened because of mass effect i presume. i dont think leaving a disc in there for a day had anything to do with it.

For Samsung SH-S223x series it's not unheard of. Check the user comment of CDFreaks' review for this drive here; http://www.cdfreaks.com/reviews/Sa [...] er-Review/