That is correct, normally you can't select the CD drive in disk utilities if no disk is inserted, but oddly enough when I had the hazing problem the CD drive did show up in disk utility even without a cd in it which prompted me to select erase CD, and the hazing instantly disappeared. I can only assume that somehow the CD drive retained residual memory/ghost image which caused the anomaly. The problem never returned..weird science..
I had similar problem with my powerbook showing cloudiness and a weird rainbow effect of colors. Checking the LVDS cable all seemed ok, then I recalled that the problem started without regularity after having used the the CD bay with my startup disk. Making sure that no cd disk was present in the bay, I then launched disk utility and selected to erase the CD disk drive, instantly the hazing rainbow effect resolved itself and the problem was fixed. I can only suppose that the CD drive had retained corrupt memory somehow which conflicted with the resolution of the display. Odd, but the above worked and problem never came back.
