What causes my CD drive to disappear?

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.games (More info?)

Maybe my first message was hard to follow, so I will ask
again.

The Sims 2 won't install on my PC. For some reason, the CD
drive disappears after the installation program asks for
disc two. Once or twice I have gotten as far as disc
three, but then the same thing happened. If I restart
Windows, the drive appears where it should be as if
nothing happened.

Other programs and games have no installation issues, but
the Sims 2 is very stubborn. Any insight as to what may be
the problem?

I'm running XP with SP2, drivers are up-to-date, no
hardware issues have been identified. I even tried
updating the InstallSheild program from their website, but
the version I'm running is the most recent.

The EA support site recommends that I close all unecessary
apps that are running in the background, which I do, but
again, nothing seems to work. I'm stumped as to what is
the logical next step. Any help, feedback, ANYTHING is
appreciated! Thanks again.