if they are on seperate channels, the cdrom should be set to master as well as the hard drive. The master/slave option is only really used for items allong the same ide cable. If this does not fix it, make sure that your hard drive is connected to the "primary" ide connector on the motherboard. Some are picky if the hard drive is not in the primary connector. (it should say on your motherboard something like primary and secondary, or first and second.) If none of this fixes it, enter your bios and check the settings to see if it is trying to boot from the hard drive.

I have a feeling though that it is the master slave problem, because the computer is trying to look for a master drive on that cable but finds none so it freaks out. Let us know what happens when you do these suggestions.

Thank you for the reply. I fixed the problem, apperantly there was some dust biult uo on one or more of the connectors. Thanks again.