ok i want my samsung 16x dvd drive as the master drive on the secondary ide and my 24x cdrw as the nonmaster(whatever you call it) on the secondary ide. Before this i had an 8x cdrw drive with the exact same setup, i just swapped the 24xcdrw witht he 8xcdrw and cannot get the computer to recognize both at the same time. What do i do?

There is a jumper at the back of each IDE device (HD, CDROM, burner, ...). You'll need to put the jumper in the right position. For Master drives, set the jumper on the 2 pin labeled MS (Master). For Slave drives, put the jumper on the 2 pins labeled SL (Slave).

thanks for the quick help, it was indeed the jumper settings