Just putting in a cdrom won't crash your computer. That sounds plain silly. The fact that you haven't even installed the burning software is what's odd. I think it is just a coincidence. Anyway, since you can get into safe mode, there is hope. You guessed it, windows ME actually has ONE useful feature...system restore! Click run, type msconfig...then click launch system restore. Go back a day or two, hopefully that will fix things for you. If not...perhaps try yanking the drive and putting the old one back before trying anything. See if it works again.
