CD, mainboard, BIOS, keyboard: can't we all get along?

Home built system functions just fine with two hard drives both on ide 1
until I try to add a TDK cdrw on ide 2 set to master. Tried three different
cables, one of which is brand new, tried brand new TDK cdrw, error message:
sec master drive- not ATAPI compatible.

I thought maybe it was the ide slot on the mainboard went dead but when I
moved the working ide cable with the two hard drives (master and slave) to
it they were recognized by the bios and worked fine.

I thought maybe it was the TDK cdr's but no, when I slaved each of them to
the working ide hard drive master they were recognized by the bios and
worked fine.

Also, when I put the TDK cdr's on ide 1 the bios froze up and keyboard got
really slow in reaction time when I tried to hit del key to go into the bios
so I never even got to the error message.

Could it be the power molex cables?

 

Double check the jumpers on the CD drive/s.
Enter BIOS and under the standard section usually change from auto to
user and press the enter key if you can and save on exit.
also try here,
http://www.geocities.com/sheppola/cdsetup.html
You may need updated IDE controller drivers.
HTH