What would cause a CDROM to disappear?

[AtomicX]

I have a CD/Burner, it constanly disappears in "My Computer" the tray won't even open.

I'm wondering if it's a bad IDE cable but I've tried a few and it keeps disappearing. My buddy gave me this old burner.

I'm using a ASrock K7VM2 MotherBoard and the burner is set to Secondary master o nthe 2nd IDE channel which the manual tells to do, could that be a problem? Both HD and rom are on seperate IDE cables.

Any suggestions woud be greatly appreciated.

Shoot away....

 

[Anubis]

bad 4pin power cable, happened to one of my HDs it would just randomly not be there on boot up

 

[Maximilian]

Aliens cause things to dissapear
Seriously though yea its probably a bad cable, the tray not openings a little worrying, not too sure but i thought the drives tray would always open as long as theres a power cable attached to it.

 

[Macro2]

bad cable, bad controller, bad virus...
possibly the OS/driver