urgent cd rom issues on imac

[hank smith]

hello I am running in to some cd rom issues on my imac
I got a io device error message on one cd
after that it would not read any more disks
it is also spitting the disk back out 99.9 percent of the time
when it is not spitting the disk out it refuses to read the disk
1 is my drive dieing?
2. is this covered under apple care getting it replaced?
thanks
Hanl