Primary IDE driver issue

[DavidE]

I have a Dell Dimension 9100 (my first mistake-lol) and when the bios comes up the DVD drives (I have two) are found but when the machine fully boots up. No drives are listed (my computer/explore) and in device manager there is a ! point on the Primary IDE. It is giving code 31 but I have read the threads and done everything- no luck. I have tried uninstalling the primary ide channel and going into regedit to remove upper and lower filters for the dvd drives. I think it is a driver or OS issue but I cannot reinstall windows because the drives won't work. Any ideas? I have been jacking with this for three days and think maybe the MOBO is bad? My HD's are SATA and work fine. Just no dvd drives. They won't even boot from a bootable disc. Thanks for any ideas in advance

[pip22]

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks2.htm#fix

From the top drop-down list, select "Restore CD or DVD Drives To Explorer".
Download and run the file.