You can prevent the drive from appearing in My Computer using Disk Administrator. Try this: Click Start, Programs--Administrative Tools--Disk Administrator.

When Disk Administrator opens, click the drive you want to remove, then choose Tools, Assign Drive Letter. When the Assign Drive Letter dialog box opens, select the radio button labeled "Do not assign a drive letter," and click OK to close the dialog box. Click Yes when asked to confirm.

Now choose Partition, Exit to close Disk Administrator. The drive you eliminated no longer appears in My Computer or in Windows NT Explorer. Restarting the computer will cause no problems.

If you should need access to the drive again, just run Disk Administrator and assign the drive a letter.

Note: Use this method to remove only unneeded CD-ROM drives--do not remove the drive letter assignment for your system disk. Removing the assignment from your system disk will cause you a lot of unnecessary problems.