CD-ROM not recognized during boot - A20/A21

I have I think an A20 or A21 and I know it used to boot off the cdrom
because I installed Redhat on it. Now after not using it for over 6 months I
decided to make something useful out of it. Problem is for some reason the
CD-ROM does not get recognized during boot. The CD-ROM works because I
plugged it into my other Thinkpad.

When the computer boots you can hear the CD-ROM spin up but when you look at
the boot screen you do see the usual 'Fixed disk 0: blah blah' BUT not the
'ATAPI CD-ROM: blah blah' that I see with my other Thinkpad. Also when fully
booted into Redhat I do not see it finding the CD-ROM. Now when I swap it
out with another CD-ROM from the other Thinkpad, it acts funny as in when I
eject it it will make funny noises then ejects and refuses to close (latch)
when I push it close.

I've opened this Thinkpad apart numerous times since I have opened it (and I
do mean open it up completely). Now I was thinking somewhere in the process
I have maybe missed a screw or a switch that I may have set it off by
accident.

From what I can tell the computer still functions well except for the CD-ROM
part which may be a pain because I will not be able to install any new OS on
it without swapping out the hdd. I do not think this boots off USB because I
do not even see the option in the BIOS for booting off USB devices.

Any ideas?