Is there a preferred, or optimal way of setting up devices on the IDE channels?

I have my bro's unit here, and I have his two Maxtor hdd's on IDE 1, and I'm using IDE 2 for his cd and dvd(?).

IDE 1
40 GB Maxtor  Primary Master
80 GB Maxtor Primary Slave

IDE 2
Sony CRX160E CD-R/RW Primary Master
Creative 52x CD-rom Primary Slave

Both hdd's on IDE 1 are detected every time during POST.
However, the two on IDE 2 are sometimes detected, but not usually (usually 'none') and currently don't show in My
Computer at all. (Creative seems ok, but Sony tray won't open)

There's mention of No Smart drivers (Belarc Advisor)
An "Array not defined" error during post
And PCI RAID controller not installed (device manager)

Thanks for any thoughts

Al Thompson

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