Quote - "The computer has to be "On" in order to open the drive.."
Nope...Somewhere on the face of the CD drive you should see a tiny hole.
Stick a small wire (something like a paperclip that has been bent straight) and that will release the door.

I do a little bit of computer repair on the side as a hobby.
This past weekend I had three PC's I got back into shape.
Two would only boot to a black screen then power off (sounds very much like you), and the third had lost a lot of Windows funtions.
All three had the same problem....a virus...the same virus in all three.

The virus goes by the name "P2P_Worm.Win32.Polip.a" and attacks many of Window's files like Winlogin,Taskmag,bootin,Regedit, etc.
So far the only Anti-Virus software (AFAICT) that has a rule-set for it, is the one I use "Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal Pro".

I had to do a fresh install of Windows to fix their problem(s)...the same thing your recover disk will do.
May not be your problem, but something to look into.

Chuck

"little" is right. I  could bearly see it. I got the drive open and will go and try the reformat now.  I've resigned myself to lost data so I'm not worried about that.

I'll let you know how it goes.  Hopefully I can get it to reformat.

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi