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#11
Assuming ATA refers to PATA, parallel ATA (IDE) and not SATA serial ATA. In a desktop PC, IDE drives connect via a ribbon cable that can handle two drives, one master and one slave. In a laptop they usually use a custom connector on an optical drive. To be honest I would expect the optical drive to be jumpered from the factory as slave, as that is all it ever will be. can't hurt to double check, but don't be surprised if you can't find the jumper. The hard drive on the other hand, even in a laptop, will still have the master slave jumper on it. Its been my experience that if you had two masters or two slaves the PC will not boot up to the OS. You will get a BIOS error message until you fix it and set the jumpers correctly. It sounds like a motherboard fault. Bent or broken connector or pin on the optical drives motherboard connector or loose cable or connection. It may sound like grasping for straws but I would reset the BIOS to failsafe defaults. Its easy to do and you never know, you might get lucky. Other than that pull the drive out and have a good look inside the empty slot with a flashlight for dust bunnies or anything that may be blocking a good connection. Good luck. :)