JB73, if he has a spare computer around - tell him to simply plug the power cable of the second PC into the CD drive's power input, power on the second PC that is no suppling that drive it's power. Press the open button the CD drive unit. If it opens when the PC boots up, it will close it. So it needs to be opened once more and then closed by pressing that button. If it opens when the PC boots up, press the button to close it and then power down that PC and hook the CD drive back up to the original PC. Should be no need to remove it from from the case.
This is assuming it opens and closes and then opens once more, requiring pressing the eject button once more to do that cycle. If its doing it automatically, I don't know what to say.
-SW