Computer not recognizing CD-Rom

I have a Dell Dimension 2350. Up until a couple a days ago the CD-Rom drive was working well, and now it is not showing up in the Device Manager nor is it showing up in my computer. However, when I put a cd in the drive, the drive light comes on, but the computer won't read from it. I think the problem is that the connections may have come loose. I am hoping this is the case because I have a 200 gig drive that is connected to the cd-rom drive(the hard drive didn't have a place to connect to the drive, so I used the cd-rom and made the new drive a slave). I do not see the 200 gig drive either, so I am thinking the connection is loose. Needless to say, I will be opening up my computer tomorrow to check the connections and replace the eide cable with one that has room for another drive. Has anyone had this problem? Randi

Hi, Randi, You'll see the drive light come on when you put a CD in, whether the IDE cable is connected properly or not, so it would appear that the CD-ROM drive is okay, just not set up right. The fact that you can't see the 200G drive tells me that either the cable isn't plugged in all the way, or both of the drives are set as master or slave. Terry

Did you start having problems when you connected the 200 gig drive? If you did, it's one of two things: 1. The cable is unplugged or loose from the motherboard. 2. Both devices are set as master or slave. From past experience, most drives come from the factory as master, and if the CD rom is at the end of the cable, it's master too. There's your problem. Check your connections and your drive assignments. It's easy to loosen that cable from the MB when you're moving stuff around inside that case. Dave

Try setting the jumpers on BOTH drives to CS (Cable Select) It usually works on Dells. We use only Dell workstations at work and I always use the CS setting. Perhaps the connector came loose from the socket on the motherboard. Also check the BIOS to see if the drives are recognized there, set to Auto. Hope you get it working. Randy