Computer doesnt see cd rom drive

My motherboard supports both IDE and SATA; however, I wasn't aware at the time that the motherboard did not have 2 IDE ports or I would have gotten a SATA device. I have one IDE port and two hard drives. One for operating and one for storage. Plus the second CDROM drive. Three IDE devices.

"Given that a single IDE port will support two drives, and you have used an IDE/SATA adapter already, that suggests this is the fourth IDE drive you have put into the machine - that's kinda excessive." --- how do you figure 4 IDE devices?
When I said second adapter I bought that is what I meant - bought. Neither adapter seems to work - or else I'm missing something.

PS - the attitude isn't necessary. Should haves and shouldn't haves won't help me now. I have a new drive and there should be a way to use it.

Thank you for your suggestion.

I, too, did some lengthy research before buying the adapter.

Rosewill RC-204
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6812206002

Type : IDE to SATA

Specifications :
IDE Device to Serial ATA Device.
ALL EIDE Type DVD / DVD-RAM / CD-ROM / CD-RW / HDD Become New Serial ATA Devices.
Attaches this Mini Dangle board to the back of all types of ATAPI, ATA/133, ATA/100, ATA/66, ATA/33, EIDE and IDE storage devices (such as Hard Disk, DVD, DVD-RAM, CD-ROM, CD-RW, MO) and make them become new Serial ATA Devices and meet SATA standard.
OS Support: 100% hardware bridge converter to support PC (Windows98/SE/ME/2000/XP/ Vista), MAC OS 8.6~9.0 and Linux environment.

Features :
Can Attaches to any type of ATAPI, ATA/133/100/66/33, EIDE and IDE storage devices (DVD, DVD-RAM, MO, CD-ROM, CD-RW, Hard Disk)

Mini Board size (59mm x 25mm), No space wasted
Compliant with Serial ATA 1.0a specifications and High transfer rate of 1.5Gbps
Supports Spread Spectrum in receiver
Compliant with ATA specifications
Compatible with Ultra ATA 133
Automatically decode the ATAPI command to know the UDMA direction.
100% hardware bridge converter board to support PC, MAC and Linux environment


According to this it should work with my CDROM, an H-L Data Storage - CD-R/RW Drive, Model# GCE 8486B.

Unless of course I missed something.
Also, as I stated in my first post, I did try using the adapter with other drives and regardless of which drive it's attached to the computer doesn't "see" it. That is how I know the CD Drive does work. AND since this is the second one that's done this - unless I'm really unlucky and getting bad parts every time, I began to wonder if I was missing something; i.e. a driver or firmware, or some other changes or things that need to be done to make the connection work. Hence, my post here.

Oh... just remembered. When I first got the drive I installed it in my old computer (for a temporary drive to install OS on new (old) hard drive) and that hardware was unable to see the drive even though it was connected as it should be to an IDE cable. This made me think the drive may be bad so I tried it in my new computer again hooking it up via the IDE cable and it worked fine. Another oddity that got me to thinking I was missing something.

Thank you.