MY SETUP
PLUG-IN CONTROLLER CARD
1. PCI to IDE [RAID] controller card with single 80 GB HDD as Primary Master.
[Working normally and detected and displayed by card BIOS]

ON BOARD IDE controllers
[Both enabled in the BIOS Setup]
2. Primary with HP CD-RW jumpered as Master.
[not detected or displayed on screen by BIOS at startup. Shown as "None" in BIOS Setup.]
3. Secondary with CD-reader jumpered as Master.
[detected by BIOS at startup and shown correctly in BIOS Setup.]

Before changing to this arrangement, both CD drives were connected to the Secondary IDE Controller, CD-RW jumpered as Master [detected], CD-reader jumpered as Slave [not detected].

Both CD drives [then and now] seen by Windows and shown as working normally in Device Manager, and working normally in use.

Now discovered that when I boot to "Smart Boot Manager" on a floppy, only the Hewlett Packard [the drive not detected by the BIOS] is listed as a CD drive to boot from [identified only as drive 0], the CD-reader [the CD drive detected by the BIOS] isn't.
The CD-reader appears to have no power, the LED isn't glowing, and the drawer doesn't open.
The HP will boot a bootable CD when I select the CD from the Smart Boot Manager" list and hit "Enter".

Strange and more strange. :confused:

When I made the above changeover, I had a bit of difficulty making certain the jumper was squarely onto the "Master" jumper pins [on the Aopen CD-952E reader].
I was fairly certain they were on square. Used a torch and magnifying glass to study the orientation. Looked ok.
Didn't take the drive out of the box. Just slid it forward in the guides.