hi, i`m in a bit of a fix, i was given a dell computor, system optiplex gx1 450l bios version ao6. the problem is it does not recognise a cdrom for me to do a fresh install of windows. i`ve gone into bios and set it to auto and it did find it and i installed win98se with a lot of missing files, and while on one of its many restarts it disappeared all together. while i was in windows i went into my computor and the cdrom was not there even though i had just installed windows. what do i need? a bios flash or ide controllers?

just remembered, i did a swap around of the hd and the cdrom on the mother board making cdrom master and the bios and startup disk found it, so it seems i have a problem with the secondary (sorry cant think what its called) plug on the motherboard looks like bios is not recognising it. if thats the case then i have no idea what to do, except for a bios flash?

many thanks and i hope it sort of made sense.