CD-ROM not recognized by Windows now

[Phil]

I have a CD-ROM and and a DVD-RW drive in my Dell 4550.
Both worked fine until I screwed something up. Now the CD-
ROM (slave) is not recognized by WinXP though BIOS shows
it. Tried disconnecting both and rebooted. Then connected
the Master and rebooted, it was OK. Then the Slave and
nothing except ther master.

Tried interchanging the two units and the slave (then DVD-
RW) wasn't recognized but the CD-ROM as Master was.

Any help to correct this would be appreciated.

 

[Rich Barry]

Phil, try connecting them as Cable Select. Change the Ribbon Cable if
you have an extra.

 

[Guest]

I'll pick on up today and give it a try. What is confusing
is that the BIOS setup screen shows it's there when I have
it hooked to this cable! When I disconnect it, it
disappears.

What is Cable Select? Must be some feature I am
unacquainted with.

Thanks

 

[Rich Barry]

Phil, Cable Select is one of the choices on the hard drive jumper.
Master, Slave and Cable Select.
You have to set both drives as cable select. The Ribbon Cable is
usually not the problem but I have
known them to go flaky especially cheaper 80wire ones. (UltraDMA) If
all else fails, I would try
moving the cdrom as slave to your Primary Hard Drive. If you have
another hard drive as secondary
then I would slave the Dvd to it. Or make it Master by itself.