Second CD-RW Drive not Detected

Okay, this time it's a hardware bug, I suppose. I'm trying to install an older game, and on this newer HP lightscribe drive (DVD-RW) it gives me file read errors. So, I decided to hook up my old CDRW drive (in like-new condition) as a slave on the same IDE cable... and even CMOS won't pick it up. It's like it's not even there. Any idea on how to make my system recognize it, or am I going to have to play "drive switch"?

Optical Drives:
HP Dvd740 Lightscribe
AOpen CD-RW

WinXP Pro SP2
P4 Prescott HT 3Ghz
Samsung Spinpoint-P 250Gb HDD
Nvidia Geforce 7600GS
1Gb Ram (2x512Mb)
Cooled with Zalman Reserator 1+

 

Have you checked the jumpers on the drive?
Do you perhaps have two master drives on the same IDE controller?

 

Nope, the HP's a master and the AO's a slave...

 

Have you ever had two drives connected to that controller cable?
If not, try switching the connectors and see if the computer recognizes the other drive.
You might have a faulty ribbon cable.

 

Definitely try swapping the drives on the cable. But also recheck the jumpers making sure that you are using the diagram on the AOpen drive to determine the slave setting. (I'm just thinking that you might be using HP's guide to determine the slave settings and AOpen might have a different configuration. )

 

There is another thread where a similar problem was mentioned that you might want to read:
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=145532

I think it best to try the ide cable first.

 

I'll give the IDE cables a try, because the other one just... broke. The slave connector came off the ribbon, but I have a spare for things like this. Also, both drives have their jumper positions etched into the backs of the drives themselves, so I've definitely got them in the right order and such.
However, I can't do it until I get my system out of safe mode... a problem I thought was solved just cropped up. Thanks for the help, guys, if I can't get it working with the cable replacement I'll be right back in here.

 

Sounds like the ribbon was probably at fault.

Good, I've just noticed that, for example, Maxtor and Western Digital hardrives have different jumper configurations for Master/Slave so you can't use the setup instructions for a new drive of one brand to change jumpers on your old HD of another brand. I was just making sure.

 

No problem man, I know how it is when you're trying to pin down the problem: go for the basic and stupid right off the bat.
But until I can get this fixed, I have a huge video driver problem in the Software section I have to fix... else I'll never have this thing out of safe mode to put it to use.