ok, I read all that information. As I have 2 drives, I would think that the chances of both being faulty is a little remote. I initially had the IDE cable from the drives to the motherboard in the wrong orientation, but getting that correct made no difference. I notice in both cases though when I try to eject a disk they do not pop out and I have to grab them with long nose pliers, so it may be some sort of sticking mechanism that is the culprit here.