At this point I've given up. Here is the problem.

I have a Pentium 3 computer, Slot one, SE440BX-2 mobo. It's brand new off Ebay, but it refuses to read from CD. It will quite happily read from floppy and a hard drive on the same controller, no problems had, but no matter if I use a CD drive, DVD drive, DVD+RW, pressed DVD, CD-RW, or CD-R, it doesn't read it. The closest I've gotten is I have gotten DOS 7.10 to read from the DVD+RW partially, but it continuously says after multiple retries the CD has no label, even though SOMETIMES if you retry, it will copy a few more files. This is using XCopy.

And It refuses to boot from it too, that is the largest problem. It says right in the BIOS in the boot order it can boot form CD an DVD, but it just refuses to read it. I have tried both controllers, 40, and 80 pin IDE cables, I have tried manual Master/Slave jumpering, as well as full and partial cable select, and nothing works. It either doesn't read it, or it gives me a directory listing and can only copy maybe 40 files before it gives up.

I have not tried another IDE controller, I do have one but it's in another machine, but I do not think it's the controller as it reads from a hard drive no problem.

Is there some config setting I am missing? It supports ATAPI, and El Torito booting, I am sure of that, and even still DOS should be able to read SOMETHING.

Thanks for any help.