I would first examine the connectors for bent pins, and
then try a different ribbon cable.  I have also seen
this when the cdrom is not jumpered as master or slave
properly, or the cable select jumper is in place. After
that, the most likely candidate is the auto-detect feature
of the motherboard's bios trying to determine what
hardware is on each IDE channel.
I would go into CMOS setup and change the detection scheme
for the ide port the cdrom is on from auto to not installed.
If you like you can test if this is true first simply by waiting
during a boot.  After a very long time, (on some of my old
boards minutes could go by) the bios should give up waiting
to get harddrive id information back from the cdrom
and complete the boot-up process.
Tom Turak

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Friday, September 10, 1999 4:45 PM

Hello,
I have just upgraded my old 486 DX-33 to an MMX-200Mhz. The new CPU is
mounted to a VA-503+ Motherboard from 1st Mainboard. My problem now is that
I cannot recognize my CD-ROM as either Primary slave or Secondary Master.
System hangs once the screen shows BIOS manufacturer and version (award). If
I remove the CD-ROM, system will boot. I suspected Sound card at first, but
system boots with all cards in place! I changed CD unit with a known good
one...same problem!  Could the problem be with the motherboard? Is there a
jumper setting to enable the secondary IDE? Board shipped jumpered to the
ATX format and I changed power and CPU voltage to the appropriate jumper
settings.

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