power connections

[derek2]

Does anyone know what might happen if the power connector to the DC-rom was touched to the CD-rom power inlet momentarily while the computer was on.
I may have done this; and now any attempt to connect any device as a slave to the primary IDE ribbon result in the computer not being able to boot into the main C-Drive.. I have anew CDRW drive that I cannot connect on the primary circuit and my secondary IDE circuit is full. Thanks for any ideas. Fred.

[hywaydave]

Does anyone know what might happen if the power connector to the DC-rom was touched to the CD-rom power inlet momentarily while the computer was on.

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here, but electricity can do some crazy things.  I had a spark once while connecting the power cable to my power supply and it ruined both my CD rom and CDRW drive, my Hard drive, video card, modem, and network card.  But my processor, memory, floppy, and motherboard still functioned.  But the AGP and PCI slots that had the cards connected were damaged.  

I would try another IDE cable.  And are you sure that the slave on the primary IDE controller in the BIOS is enabled?  If you need additional assistance, please contact me at ResourcePC.

Dave

[Computer_Commando]

There is nothing in a PC that is "hot swappable".  This means that nothing is designed to make or break a connection while voltage is present at the power source.  Anything that happens as a result of this whether intentional or not is purely a "crap shoot".  If you're lucky...nothing bad happens; if you're not...your guess is as good as mine.  Do what hywaydave suggests and hope for the best.