I have been having trouble getting my computer to recognize both my 2nd hard drive and my DVD-ROM drive at once. My motherboard is an Abit IC7-G. I have 1 SATA 200 gb HD, which I have working without issue (which registers as the primary master). I then have 1 IDE 160 gb HD which is acting as a secondary master. On that same IDE channel, as the secondary slave, I *should* have my DVD drive. However, over the months I have seen that from time to time one or the other will not work (DVD or HD), and now I believe that it has always only ever been one or the other working at any given time. When one or the other works seems random, as I make no changes to my system, yet occasionally one will start/stop working. The jumpers on the back of both the HD and DVD are set correctly. When I start up my computer, the initial screen shows that both drives are detected, but once I am in Windows XP, one will not be working. Currently, the DVD drive shows up in the device manager but with a yellow “!”, since it was there before but isn’t at the moment. Is my issue with this SATA HD not working with the others? Is there some reason that the computer wouldn't see both drives? I've tried several different IDE cables, and put the three drives in a variety of different configurations, to no effect. Ask any information, and I will gladly get it for you. I'm fairly computer literate - not the best, but manageable.

There shouldn't be any jumper on the primary (secondary master) drive. It should only be on the slave. Lessons learnt the hard way are not easily forgotten.