DVD-ROM drive won't show in WindowsXP

[SCRacer]

Just did a fresh install of WinXP Pro...everything seems great...mostly

here's my system:
Epox 8RDA+ nForce2
AMD Athlon XP2100 (multiplier at 12, FSB at 166)
2 x 256MB HyperX ram
Radeon 9500 Pro 128MB
SB Audigy
MSI TV tuner card
Maxtor PCI ATA IDE controler card

two hard drives:
one is Maxtor 60GB
other is 80GB, partitioned into two drives

Optical Drives:
CD-ROM 56X
CDRW 52X
DVD-ROM

the 60GB HD is master with the Windows load on drive C: on IDE #1 with the DVD-ROM drive as the slave on that IDE cable

the other two optical drives are on the second IDE channel

the partitioned HD is on the PCI IDE controler card

HERE's the problem:

in my BIOS screen the DVD-ROM drive shows up, but in Windows it does not. if i open My Computer or the device manager it doesn't show the DVD drive in there either. when i look at the properties of the "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controlers"...the primary channel says "No Device" for the slave...but yet i can look at my BIOS screen all day and see the device there.

I've checked and double checked the jumpers and swapped out the cable. it's almost like i'm out of drive letters??? i'm still kinda new to WinXP, so i'm hoping i'm just being dumb about something.

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

[Xaotic]

Welcome to the forums.

Try this first. Make a DOS boot disk with the CD drivers(a Win 98 disk will work). Boot and try to access the DVD drive. Most likely, the drive has a good firmware, but is bad mechanically. Atempting to read from the drive will easily allow you to determine its status. Alternately, you could try booting with a bootable CD, with the boot from CD option enabled is BIOS. If it works, then it's a problem with the OS. Check the Event Viewer on the system tab to see if there are any errors referenced.

[SCRacer]

What i did when i decided to move to XP is to buy a new HD. so that 60GB drive is new with an 8MB cache.

i still have my old HD with WinME (i know, i know...WinME sucks) with the full install with what was my old computer. I've already swapped that HD in and can boot to all the devices i've listed in my original post with no issues at all. So, i'm fairly certain that it is an O/S issue.

in my continuing research of this issue, i read one post today that sounded similar, where the dvd drive went away after the Nero burning software was loaded. it was a new post so no responses or resolutions were listed. but i'm thinking since i do use the Nero software that i would try to unistall it and see what happens. Not, holding my breath on that one since i used Nero on my WinME install as well.

Xaotic, thanks for the welcome and your reply.

[Xaotic]

One other thing to try, swap the DVD-ROM onto the other channel, most likely as master and one of the CDs(whichever you use less) onto the bus with the HDD. This may prompt recognition of the drive by the OS. It most likely isn't improperly jumpered, but check in any event. On the Nero issue, I haven't witnessed any of those condition, though I have seen uninstall issues with very early versions of Adaptec. It's worth a shot to try uninstalling it. Good luck.

[diehrd]

Windows Update......