Thanks for your reply. The card idea is probably not an option. The challenge here is to put something together with the old 'junk' that's available. I'd also be concerned about trying to get it to actually work on that machine. I did install a cable and tried to install the CD-ROM as a slave to the harddrive. When I tried to get Windows (95A) to 'detect newly installed hardware', it didn't see the CD-ROM, even as an unrecognized device. Of course Compaq has that weird pseudo BIOS - O/S program that runs underneath the O/S, so perhaps I needed to 'add' it there first. Also, the CD-ROM was set to slave, but the pins on the back of the harddrive (which is also ancient) were a different configuration from what I'm used to. First there were only 4 pins (instead of the usual 6) and there was no label (SL, MA, CS) as there usually is. Also, the jumper was connecting two pins 'horizontally' rather than the normal veritical. I assume it was already set to 'master', since it was the only device on that channel.