strange computer problem...

[java_dude]

hi, ive been having this strange computer problem for the last day but its kinda hard to explain... well anyways my sisters friend gave me a broken computer a few months ago and ive been wanting to use it for some of the stuff since its a lot newer than mine. So, i took out the cd burner and put it in my computer and it worked alright.

Then today i decided to switch my cd-rom drive with the other and when i put it in my computer and booted up it just sat at the manufacturer's screen for 2 mins (it never does that), and then it seemed normal until i realized that the hard drive light didn't work at all. So i restarted and it did the same thing. I opened it up, made sure the cables were alright and it still didnt work like it normally does.

So i took out the drive and put the old one in (i really didnt want to but i guess i had to) and it started up fine, but the light won't work! I know it might sound stupid but i just want the thing to work again and i was hoping you guys could help me out.

Im running an emachines computer with 192mb of ram, a 633mhz processor and windows 2k on it, if that helps at all. thx for any help!

[Guest]

Is your Cd-ROM drive set to be Master or Slave? I had this problem, and none of the drives on the one cable worked.

[java_dude]

well, my cd rom is set as the master and my cd-rw is set as slave. They're both set on cable select too. I didn't change anything inside, except for the drive i hooked up, but all the interface cables stayed in the same setup and all was well with the old drive.

So, I just put the old cd-rom back in and my computer boots up fine again, but that damn hdd light still wont work! I was also wondering, does anyone know what the analog wire is for? It plugs into the cd rom drive. In my computer there's an analog, and my old cd rom drive was hooked up to it, but in the other computer there isn't one (but there's a place for the wire to plug in on the drive) I had it plugged into the drive when my computer was messed up but im not sure if i was supposed to...

someone told me to leave it plugged in unless my computer was a high speed one and i "know what im doing," but i have an old computer (633mhz). Could having that analog wire plugged in stall my computer from starting up?