Hi, The problem I am having is that BIOS cannot find my DVDrom. When I boot, it says "primary/secondary hard drive not found". (In my BIOS, I have the channel as Auto, there is no cdrom selection) The brief history is, my HD is primary master, and the DVD is second. master. This used to work, but then I tried to install a CDRW as a second. slave, and both cdroms were dead. So when I uninstalled the CDRW, the DVDrom was still dead and I can't get it back. I've checked the connections thoroughly, jumper settings (tried cable select, master, slave, and left open) I have checked the BIOS time and again for something I may have inadvertenly changed, but can't find anything. Can anyone out there help me!! Thank you, Paul

Hi Paul: If you think you changed something by accident, most BIOS have a reset to default command. You might want to do that. It might also be a jumper on the motherboard. look around near the CMOS battery, they are usually a different color like red or blue (not always though), and are usually on a three pin connection, covering two of them. With the power off and the power cord unplugged from the power supply, move this jumper to the other two pins (ie if it covers pins 2-3 move it to pins 1-2). leave it there for a few seconds and it should reset the CMOS/BIOS.

Try getting the CDRW drive to work by itself on the secondary channel. If that doesn't work you know you broke the channel. Also try putting the DVD on the primary channel as slave and see what happens. Unfortunately you may have broken something. The chances of that are small though. What kind of motherboard are you using? Ron

Thanks Lee/Ron, I'll try the BIOS reset and putting the DVD on primary slave, those are good ideas. At least I'll know if it's a problem with my secondary IDE or not. BTW, Ron, how do you "break a channel"? Currently, I don't think I broke anything, I think there is a conflict somewhere with the secondary IDE. It can't seem to find anything. I've checked for bent pins, power connectors are OK, even switched IDE cables, nothing yet. Thanks! Paul

This may sound dumb and simple but, make sure that you are lining up the stripe on the ribbon cable with pin 1 on the board and pin 1 on the drives.

Thanks all. I got the DVD back again. For some reason, it won't work on the secondary IDE as either master or slave, but works fine on the primary IDE as either. I verified my secondary IDE is OK, because I moved my HD to the secondary IDE (master) and it worked just fine. Weird. Unfortunately, I still can't get my CDRW installed in any place. If anyone has any comments/advice, I sure would appreciate it greatly! Here's what happens. When I install the IDE cable and power cable into the CDRW, my bios says "can't find secondary hard drive 1drive". (Likewise if I put it somewhere else besides my secondary slave) The weird thing is, that it acts like it has no power. No lights blink and I can't open the CD tray. If I pull the IDE cable out and leave the power cable in, lights blink and I can open the CD tray. Also, the CDRW works fine in my other PC. I've checked for bent pins, tried other IDE cables, and played with various master/slave combos. Thanks alot!!! Paul