Thank you Jun, I've had the same thing happen to my own machine and have become very used to using the C:format command; I too blame a buggy OS. One question, did your "A" drive fail to respond during your troubles? I've never had this happen before and am trying to avoid buying a new motherboard. First CD ROM access went; then I slave it and got it back; immediately after, A-access went; Now I have neither, Device Mgr., shows sec., IDE conflict; ---- oh well, I'm just waiting to hear from my friend with the same motherboard and BIOS so we can reformat this HDD on his machine and use test the faulty machine; hope it's not the mobo! thanks again, Casey Jun Qian wrote: > > I had similar problem before my win95 crashed (Just without the CD-ROM > access problem). It sounds like win95 system problem to me (not everbody > else fault but bill gates') > The best way to solve it is format C drive and do everything again. (If you > can make a cd-rom boot disk and get all s/w installation cd/disks and have > data backup) > If i can think anything else, I'll tell you. > > Good luck > > casey marion wrote: > > > Hi all, I was recently called to a friend's house to help them with a > > problem they were having. Their computer, P-100 on a VX AOpen board, > > kept getting "Illegal Operation" codes followed by a really buggy > > system. Explorer.exe would not work, IE3 would not work, and the CD-ROM > > would not access. > > I opened the case and checked all the cables. CD-ROM on Sec., IDE, so I > > slaved it to the Prim., IDE on the HDD.CD worked! But, then the A-drive > > quit working?? > > Nothing I've tried would get the a-drive to work. I tried three > > different cable, and another "working" a-drive. Rebooted, and the CD > > isn't recognized by WIN95 (b) anymore! > > Checked system device mgr., and the secondary IDE shows a conflict. > > Removed and re-installed IDE HDD controllers. > > And, still, no luck. CD not recognized on sec., IDE/ A: will not read, > > locks if try to access/ machine won't boot if CD slaved to Primary IDE > > on HDD cable. > > Afraid to reformat because I have no floppy access andno CD-ROM access. > > Thoughts? it's a fairly new mobo [1 yr., old] and shouldn't be going > > bad, but my next move might be a new mobo for them . . . > > This problem originally started out as software related