comp. probs, need assistance

I've got a dell xps computer, and I am having some problems with it. I think it's probably just something stupid, stemming from a lack of hardware knowledge.

Anyway, I have a dvd rom and dvd burner, but the dvd rom doesn't respond to anything. I can put any cd/dvd in, and nothing happens. There's nothing wrong according to device manager (no question marks), and I'm not sure how the master/slave configuration should be setup.

I am having a similar problem with my USB ports...my computer responds to nothing that I connect to my computer...I've tried a digital camera and USB mice in every one of my six usb ports and nothing works.
I'm not sure what settings I should be messing with to get this to work, I'm sure it's something stupid but I do not know what is wrong.

Tell me, is your dvd rom a Phillips?

If you put something in the DVD drive, can you manually open it with Windows Explorer, or whatever you use? What I mean is, are we looking at a drive problem, or an autorun problem?

Well, there seems to be a problem with the communication between the usb ports and the motherboard, and another comminucation problem between the dvd drive and your motherboard.

- Check the version of your firmware ( both motherboard ( BIOS) and dvd drive! )
- Never leave a dvd or cd in your drive when rebooting or turning of your pc ( this can cause problems like this )
- Have you contacted dell yet?

XPS? well u should address that problem to dell themselves, u should have gotten a waranty on an XPS system.