I have an E-Machine 500is, 256 meg RAM, windows 98, a 4 gig "C" drive, (master) and 40 gig "D" drive, (slave) paralled into the primary EIDE connector. I also have a Imation 12x8x32 burner (slave) and the stock Atapi 40x CD-ROM (master) paralled into the secondary EIDE connector. I have a new 250 watt power supply.

My problem:  The system suddenly stopped "seeing" the two CD drives. I have changed connector cables with no effect. How can I determine exactly where the problem is? The drive lights do go on upon startup as they should so I know they have power. (Yes I have made sure all cables are securely fastened.) I have also swapped the primary and secondary cables between the connectors and found that then the hard drives are not seen. Seems to point to a bad secondary connection. Is replac
ing the motherboard my only option??

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