putting a new CDrom a motherboard......Easy....should be!

i added another cdrom to my motherboard....It doesn't work. Bios reads the cdrom but when i enter windows, it isn't listed in the device manager.

do i need a driver, or is something just not "right"?

Have you set the jumper settings as required on your CD Roms? You must make sure that one is master and the other setup as slave. I assume the BIOS is configured to set up all hardware through Plug and Play system as well.

the jumpers are correct. i've tried all sorts of cable routing and bios changes. it works on my old MB but when i switch everthing over to the new board ....nadda. could it be that all the IRQ's and DMA are listed on the hard drive and there moght be a conflict? .......would wiping the hard drive and starting fresh do the trick by chance?

That should be the last thing you should do, as it will be time consuming.

I suggest you check the cables by replacing them and see if it works. If you have spare ones try them out. Use the end of the cable on the master drive and the middle connector on the slave.

Could you give some more info on your system? What hardware are you using (MB, CD, etc) and what is the software installed (OS)?

at the moment i have:

P II MMX 333Mhz (intel board)
Windows 98se
320 MB ram
40 gig maxtor 5400rpm hd (master)
1 gig seagate hd (slave) - small and probably useless
acer 40x cd-rom (master)
cendyne 32x12x48 cd-rw (slave)

im trying to switch every thing to a Gigabyte 81EXP motherboard

i have tried other cables. in the device manager, i have a few Other Devices and a conflict with a PCI Bus. no listing of hard drives, monitor, dispay adapter, hard disk controllers, usb controllers and a few other things i cant remember.

Troubleshooting the existing system may take up a lot of time and since you are already trying to upgrade the MB it may solve other problems as well.

One thing I noticed that was the CD-RW is set up as slave and the CD Rom as master, it is usually a good idea to have it other way around, that is to set up the writer as a master and CD Rom as a slave.

Good Luck with your upgrade.