Problems With Ide Drives?

Hello-

Last week, I noticed I had problem with my CD & DVD Drives; when accessed, the would spin up and then spin down, repeatedly. I swapped cables, power supplies, and even tested with another CD drive. Finally, I swapped MBs, and I mgiht still have the problem. I am a little unclear on this at the moment. But I might have one hint, by viewing the drives listed on "My Computer."

C: IDE1, MASTER, 160GB Western Digital Drive
D: IDE2, MASTER, CD R/W
E: SATA, RAID1 ARRAY
F: USB CF DRIVE from CARD READER
G: USB SD DRIVE from CARD READER
H: USB MMC DRIVE from CARD READER
I: USB SMC DRIVE from CARD READER
J: IDE2, SLAVE, DVD
?: I also have new 200GB Seagate drive on IDE1/slave, but it doesn't show.

My questions:
1. With IDE1/master in position C, shoudln't the slave follow in D?
2. It seems strange that with IDE1/master in positon "C", and "IDE2 in position, "D", that IDE2/slave DVD doesn't show up until position "J".

Are these correct or does this suggest a conflict or a configuration problem of some type? This could be part of my problem? Seems like my hardware is functioning OK, and I do plan to save my data and reformat all my drives.

I'd like to hear your comments. Thx.

Scott

Did you do a reformat with the swapped motherboard? Sometimes the drive listing follows the history of when the drives were installed. If you did a fresh fromat of the C drive the order of the drives might change again.

Conan-

No, I have not yet reformatted with the new motherboard. I will do that soon; as soon as I recover my outlook files from drive E (which no longer has a working OS) or convince myself that I can't retrive the outlook file(s), then I will quit; and I will reformat my drive(s) and completely reinstall the OS.

Before I do this, I'll read to ensure I know exacly which drives it will boot from and how to control the drive lettering. Note that when I reformat/reinstall the OS on my current drive E, I will bring up my system and transfer files from the current C to the current E. Both drives will then have a copy of WINXP so I will have to control the booting process to ensure I boot from the current drive E.

In any case, by reformatting & reinstalling the OS, the idea is to clean up and fix all my present issues--once and for all. :)

Scott