Windows 7 - Broken dvd-drive button

Hello, I have a Gateway PC that I bought last year. When I purchased the computer, it had Vista preinstalled. I updated that to Windows 7 as soon as Gateway has shipped the free update disk. Now the problem is that when the computer was new, the dvd-drive button on the case was working on an on-off basis sometimes not responding at all and not opening the drive. As soon as I updated to Windows 7, the button on the case had stopped working completely and now it doesn't respond to pushes at all and does not open the drive. With some research, I was able to find the problem being within the driver in Windows which according to the source needed to be deleted with some finicky tinkering, which I've done. The source also mentioned that the driver would be reinstalled by Windows as soon as I rebooted the computer and the problem would be solved. The problem had remained and to this day, and to open the dvd drive I have to click "eject" in my computer.

Is there any possible way to solve this problem on a software level, or is this a hardware problem? Also worth mentioning - my warranty has expired and Gateway support has been useless.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am willing to reinstall Windows completely, but I'd rather avoid doing that. Thank you for reading my long post.