Hi

First of all, some basics: To work correctly, a CDROM requires at least 2 cables: a power cable (it has 4 cables: 2 black, 1 red, 1 yellow) and a data cable (the IDE one, flat gray ribbon one). These same cables are required for a hard drive to work. Also, an IDE cable, can have upto 2 devices connected to it. One of those devices will be the "master", the other will be "slave". You cannot have two masters or two slaves on the same IDE cable. To determine which device is master and which is slave, there are 2 possible methods: the first one is manually setting each device to be what you want. This is done with some jumpers on the back of the CDROM (or hard drive) and you check the required position of the jumper and set it accordingly. The second option, is using an automatic method, which is the "cable select" jumper position (usually marked CS). If you do this, then the master drive has to go connected to the middle of the IDE cable and the slave device has to go to the end of the cable. The third connector will go to the motherboard of the PC. Keep in mind that both devices should be set using the same method (both manually jumpered or both using cable select). Also, there can be upto 2 IDE cables connected to a single motherboard usually, so 4 devices in total (2 masters, 2 slaves, one of each per IDE cable). The hard drive should be the primary master, and the CDROM can be either the primary slave (sharing the IDE cable with the primary master) or the secondary master (having its own IDE cable connected to the secondary IDE channel of the motherboard). Now, it would help if you post clear pictures of how your drives are connected and the jumpers positions to help further.

I know that there is no Secondary Master/Slave on this system at all because the spot on the motherboard labeled for it does not have a connector. In the BIOS, the hard drive is the primary master and the CD drive is the secondary slave. However, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get the CD drive out. It seems stuck in the drive cage, which itself is melded to the case. I'll poke around a bit to see if I can get it out and show jumper settings.

brian105 wrote on 2020-04-18, 00:06:

I know that there is no Secondary Master/Slave on this system at all because the spot on the motherboard labeled for it does not have a connector. In the BIOS, the hard drive is the primary master and the CD drive is the secondary slave. However, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get the CD drive out. It seems stuck in the drive cage, which itself is melded to the case. I'll poke around a bit to see if I can get it out and show jumper settings.

Check if the front of the PC is removable, maybe you need to remove it before you can take the CDROM out. The CDROM can be wither screwed directly to the chassis of the PC, or it can be screwed to some king of rail that slides into the chassis. Check carefully and you should find the way to remove it.

I've checked all over the damn thing for 45 minutes and nothing. It seems permanently attached to the chassis. Removed all the screws I could near it, pushed or pulled, doesn't move at all. I managed to find the model though: Wearnes CDD-620.
EDIT: found one on a website with jumper pics.
https://www.recycledgoods.com/wearnes-cdd-620 … d-rom-internal/
2nd edit: According to Is it true that older CD-Roms can't read Rs and RWs? this link, older CD drives have trouble with reading CD-Rs. Maybe that's the issue?

brian105 wrote on 2020-04-18, 01:54:

I've checked all over the damn thing for 45 minutes and nothing. It seems permanently attached to the chassis. Removed all the s […]
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I've checked all over the damn thing for 45 minutes and nothing. It seems permanently attached to the chassis. Removed all the screws I could near it, pushed or pulled, doesn't move at all. I managed to find the model though: Wearnes CDD-620.
EDIT: found one on a website with jumper pics.
https://www.recycledgoods.com/wearnes-cdd-620 … d-rom-internal/
2nd edit: According to Is it true that older CD-Roms can't read Rs and RWs? this link, older CD drives have trouble with reading CD-Rs. Maybe that's the issue?

Well, it would be very strange that the CDROM was permanently attached to the chassis. I've never seen that on any PC in my life, much less a branded one like this compaq. Anyway, it is possible that your CDROM has issues reading the CD-R and CD-RW disks: have you tried reading an original CD, or an original audio CD? however, that would not explain the yellow triangle you saw before in it on Windows' device manager. Something's either misconfigured or broken with it. Just for curiosity: is your PC like this one?

Yep, it's basically identically like that one. However, now I have a much bigger issue. It won't power on at all. I already had this issue yesterday where it took a good 5 minutes for it to boot after pressing the power button repeatedly, but now it just doesn't want to boot. Maybe it has to do with the molex and IDE cables I reseated, or the PSU which caused burn marks on the case when it was originally used.

Well, the problem with not turning on could be the power supply, maybe it has dirt, or the capacitors are dying or something, but it could also be the motherboard of the PC, or the CPU, hard to tell. Try checking again the connections of the PS to the motherboard and reseating them. Unfortunately, the PS is not standard, so if it is damaged, you may have to repair it because getting another one might be difficult. Regarding the CDROM situation, I found this link:

https://cristarta.com/projects/computers/wind … estoration.html

which contains a disassembly of a PC similar to yours, and there is a pic where the front panel was removed and it seems there are a couple screws there which keep the CDROM in place. If you remove them (and maybe press a "lever" that can be seen on top of the CDROM) you should be able to take it out.

The internal layout & parts of the 2100 differs somewhat from the 2200. This list...

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/bpb12289.pdf

...shows correct part numbers for the OPs system. The 30W PSU (285730-001) may still be available as it also seems to be listed elsewhere as the Touch SP9618. The CD is findable also online. This link has a good illustrated parts list

https://store.emprgroup.com.au/hpi-970039788- … 285700-004.aspx

Yep, that seems to be the PSU model. I tried another PSU but wasn't exactly sure it would work since some of the plastic pieces on the molex connector weren't the same, and as expected it didn't work. I'll probably give up on this thing, there are so many possibilities for how it died and fixing it is too much work for a rather crappy Cyrix 5x86.

Good news. The system has somehow revived itself after I plugged it in on a whim and it powered on. The only difference I can see is that I unplugged the floppy drive from the mobo, so I'll have to verify if that was the culprit.