Hi, a friend of mine has just bought a new system.

He has an Asus A8R-MVP Motherboard, an IDE DVD-ROM and DVD-RW, and 2 SATA Hard Disks.

It all worked fine for a couple of days with:

Primary Master = DVD-ROM
Primary Slave = DVD-RW

Sec Master = None
Sec Slave = None

Third Master = 80GB SATA HD (with OS)
Third Slave = 120GB SATA HD

Today though, the DVD drives have stopped working. They don't appear in the BIOS, they won't open and close, and obviously they don't appear in Windows.

We tried disconnecting the IDE cable from the DVD-RW, and this allowed it to open and close - the DVD-ROM remaining absent and unable to open. Then we tried disconnecting the IDE and power cable from the DVD-ROM, and connecting the DVD-RW back up. Then neither were able to do anything.

We've tried changing the IDE cable and power cables, and have used both the blue IDE slot on the mobo, and the black secondary one.

Through all of this the Hard Disks seem unaffected.

I'm at a loss here, so help would be much appreciated.

Edit: When both drives are powered but not connected to the motherboard, they can open and close. As soon as the IDE cable is in, they stop working altogether.

My first thought would have been a defective power cable. I've seen CD drives just stop working because both black wires were not attached properly.
Second thought was, maybe the cable was upside down. But that probably would have resulted in the system just plain not booting up at all. Besides if it's got SATA, I'd be really surprised if the parallel ATA cables and connectors weren't keyed (making that impossible).
Third guess would be to check the Master/Slave settings on each drive. Generally, they're three pairs of pins with a jumper (cap_ over any one pair, looking like this [ : : : ] The pairs are "Master" [M], "Slave" {S], and "Cable Select" ["C" or "CS"].
I might guess that either the jumper has been bumped off, is defective, or is incorrectly plugged in. If it's defective, a new one is about $0.05 to replace. If it's bumped off, you'll probably have to shake the chassis to find the thing again, or go buy a new one. If it's just plugged wrong, remember that it needs to be placed vertical like this [] on the pins [ : : : ] and that both pins must be connected by the jumper. Plugging it sideways will likely give similar results to not having any jumper at all.
Unless the manufacturer specifically says otherwise, drive with no jumper has an "undefined" response.
I have seen some drives in the past which get "confused" with the CS jumper set. While the cable is supposed to help it define which one it is, an old, abused, incorrect or defective cable may not allow that function to work correctly. The "CS" mode ONLY works on the 80 pin cables. As a precaution, I always specify whether a drive is "Master" or "Slave" by using those jumpers instead of "CS", just to avoid the possibility of a defective cable making the system not work.
Since your primary hard drives are on SATA, is there any reason that you're not using one CD drive on the Primary Master, one on the Secondary Master? Yes, it requires a second cable, but it might work better in the long run.

Thanks for the response.

We have tried using different power cables and it didn't make any difference. The power works anyway once the DVD drives are not connected to the motherboard.

I have just told him to try the jumper settings, we'll see whether that makes any difference.

Okay changing the jumpers didn't work. With them both on Master and CS settings made the system unable to boot up (when on seperate IDE cables). Both on slave booted up, but they were not powered once again.

Back to the drawing board I guess.

It's very strange, they had been working fine before.

Starforce? i remember when i installed my game w/ starforce, for some reason my cd/dvd drives disappeared...

Nah he only built the PC a few days ago - the only game he's had chance to install is Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which doesn't use Starforce.

He didn't try to play any Sony CDs did he? Remember that rootkit problem that showed up because Sony suruptitiously installed something to keep folks from copying CDs? (There's still state lawsuits over it!) I didn't think it screwed up the BIOS though, and you'd mentioned that the drives don't even show up during the Power On Self Test [POST] or during the BIOS setup.
Try unplugging the computer's power cord, then press the power switch. It might "blip". Plug the power cord back in and restart. If it powers up fine, you're good to go. If not, try this...
While this will be a royal pain in the keyster, it might work better. Unplug the power cord. Press the power switch. It might "blip" as above. With the power cord out, pull the battery for the non-volatile RAM - it looks like a big, shiny round button or quarter. Note which side is down (usually the one where you can see the black or white ring. Leave it out for 15 minutes. Put it back in. Plug in the power cord, and turn the computer on. Press whatever key is needed to go to the Setup utility (usually "Del" or "F1" or "F2" ) The system time will have to be reset, but see if the drives show up now. If not, perhaps the BIOS was blown or the IDE controller has gone south. Don't forget to set up the other parameters as required in the Setup utility, then save and exit.
If they DO show up, but fail to show once the OS is running, here's probably a virus or rootkit that's claimed the PC. Perhaps the HD needs to be wiped clean and the whole mess needs to be reinstalled. If this drastic step needs to be taken, do NOT go online (disconnect the ethernet and/or modem) during or after installation until a suitable anti-virus program is installed.
That's about all I can think of without actually BEING there. Best of luck.

We've tried everything except taking out the battery.

The problem with reinstalling Windows is that we need a CD.. and if it doesn't fix the problem, we'll be stuck with nothing.

We've tried using a completely different DVD drive - from a different PC - and had no success.

I'm baffled. Maybe it'd be easier to just get a SATA or external DVD drive..