Damn ... new pc is winning!

Sweet new PC and when I turn it on the CD will not work?! I have an ASRock Z77 Pro3 board, a Samsung SH-222BB CD and a Vertex Agility3 SSD and I get in to the bios and see everything exactly as I would expect. So I've done this ...
> set the boot order to be CD first and SSD second
> confirmed everything is seen/identified
> verified the sata ports are set to ACHI

I turn on the PC and the screen reads: reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key

I push the button on the front of the CD drive and the try will not open. Initially I got a light on the front (LED) but not now. So far I have ...

1) shut down the PC, opened the drive with a paperclip, put in the Win7 disk and turned on the PC ... drive wont close even if I push the button ... disk won't load even if I hit enter

2) repeat step 1 but while the pc is off close the CD tray ... same result

3) tried every SATA power connection from the PSU ... two cables with two connectors each ... each time I change the connections I verified the drives appear correctly in bios

4) swapped the SATA data cable with the drives ... no difference

5) tried all 4 SATA connections on the mobo ... no difference

5) tried another drive (an HP DVD 1260) ... no difference

I'm so far out of ideas I don't have a clue! I would appreciate any idea on how to get the CD working so I can load Win& on this box.