Cannot get my ide dvd drive to work with a sata to ide converter using win xp Wh

what is the jumper setting?

try to set it to either Master or Cable Select.

The hard drive must be set for Master. If it still does not work then the converter is faulty.

the dvdrw drive is set as master and I've tried 2 sata to ide converters with the same results.

hi, it's a dvdrw drive which is set as master and I've tried 2 sata to ide converters. Could there be any other reason ? Thanks,

Just a thought not based on practical experience, have you checked in the BIOS and made sure that the SATA controller is set in IDE mode and not AHCI or RAID. (or if it is set to IDE try AHCI)
Changing the SATA controller mode might make your system not boot, but does it make the DVD drive visible in the BIOS? If so you have solved the problem. The Windows not booting problem can be solved with a registry edit before you change the SATA mode.

As far as I understood, HDD don't like being a slave to a DVD drive...have you tried with the HDD as master, or no?

Yes, I have 2 hdd on the ide cable(master and slave). I'm trying to use the sata port with the converter to connect the ide dvd-rom. Thanks.