Machine was originally set up with hard disk attached to a SCSI or SATA card in a PCI slot, and two CD-ROM drives attached to the motherboard's standard IDE-1 connector. IDE-2 connector was unused. Removed original hard drive and installed a standard IDE HDD, connected to IDE-1, and moved cable for the 2 CD-ROMS (one set to master and one to slave) to IDE-2. Now, the BIOS shows no indication that the CD-ROM drives are there. I've tested the two CD drives independently on the IDE-2 connector, setting each as master; neither will show up. Even tried a new CD drive, with no luck. Activated Primary *and* Secondary IDE controllers in BIOS, same result. Motherboard is a Fujitsu-Siemens D1192. I've looked at the manual for the board, and can't find any reason why the IDE-2 connector would be dead. I'm using a 40-pin IDE cable for the CDs, and 80-pin for the HDD on IDE-1. Haven't tried a new 40-pin cable for IDE-2 yet, because this one was working in the IDE-1 connector before. Anyone got any clues as to what my problem is?

A number of years ago I purchased a cheap PCChips socket 370 motherboard (I believe the model number was 571), and after exhaustive testing like you have done, I concluded the secondary IDE controller was defective since no IDE device would be recognized. While this is not very common, it does happen. Instead of trying to return it since everything else already was working, I decided to keep it. I simply purchaed a Promise Ultra ATA 66 IDE PCI Controller Card, and all IDE devices are plugged into that instead of the motherboard since the motherboard only supports Ultra ATA-33. It still works to this day (albeit a bit slowly) with XP SP2 and a 400 MHz processor. I - Sandor J Knowledge is the treasure, but judgment is the treasurer of the wise man. - William Penn (1614 - 1718)

Try a different power connector. Check for bent pin(s) in the motherboard socket. I assume that you are inserting the cable correctly at both ends.