OK this is some weird stuff.
I just did a fresh install of win98 on a different computer than the one im using and everytihng was going great. I was using the cd to install everything. Then after i was done installing I connected a second hardrive and disconnected the cdrom. I copied some files off the new hard drive and then took it out and put the cdrom back in. NOW heres the problem... the bios detected it and it works in dos but not in windows. It doesnt even show up in the device manager. I have the single hard drive on IDE1 as the master and on IDE2 i have the cdrom as the master. I thought the problem could have been with the cdrom so i switched to another one and got the EXACT same problem. Then i thought the problem was the IDE cable so i switched that and still the same problem.
any ideas???
thanks a lot

Try formatting the HD again and booting from the cd to install

You've probably confused windows. I bet that, if you boot into safe mode and check the device manager, it will list one or more CDROM drives. Remove all of them and reboot, and you should be fine. (be aware that cdrom's don't work in safe mode, but they are detected).

Also be sure you're jumpering them correctly. If you've got the drives using cable select and the above doesn't work, try setting them to master/slave.

Also, do NOT install real-mode CD-ROM drivers. If you did so when installing windows, make sure you remove while in DOS.

One more thing about jumpering -- you said you've got the CDROM as master on the 2nd ide. Often, it won't work correctly as master unless there's a slave drive on the same cable. A single drive on the end of the IDE cable works best with the "single drive" config, which usually means no jumper at all...

It the bios detects it and it works in does then it's a windows problem.
more specifically a registry problem I would guess.

Boot into safe-mode
goto the device manager
remove the CD-drive listing
remove the disk drive listings.

reboot.
I imagine when you did the drive switch your drive letters got messed up.
causing the CD drive not to be listed.

anytime you move hardware temporarily back up your registry.
then restore it after you switch back.

other than that you'll have to do so clean up in the deivice manager in safe-mode.

TheGorx - Windows Help

I suspect that you CDrom drive is a renegage alien from the planet SCHITZBOTZ, and it's here to ruin your Disc's and pork your woman! Quickly, grab yourself a SCHITZBOTZ scanner recalibrator and then hit the alien with a stinkballzy ray!, but you have to do this while the alien has it head up its kurtailious shimz hole! If you manage to do that, the little finglenutz will go away and your system will return back to normal. Hope this helps you.

Hey thanks for the quick responses!
im gonna go try this but its a pain to reach behind the desk and unplug all the wires and stuff and then plug them in again and so on but ill get back to you guys tomorrow

again, thanks a lot