I suspect the problem is a corrupted EPROM in the CD drive unit itself, but know of no way to reset it or clear it. Problem unit is a Samsung SN-308B/CLV CDRW/DVD ROM that not showing up in bios at boot or in setup mode (Phoenix bios says shows secondary channel is in AUTO mode and this device USED TO BE secondary master). There is no secondary IDE channel in XP/Home, and no CDROM device shows up at all.

Various Samsung and other utilities do not find CD ROM drive at all even when booted to Win98 from diskette with old "universal" software to locate CD ROM drives.

System is 2003 vintage, XP/Home, SP2, Sager-Midern 5620, P4 2.0 gig, 1gig RAM, 40gig HDD (still working fine and being seen as primary/master).

Any thoughts appreciated. Thanks,

First thing I would do is the hardware test for the ROM drive. Remove the IDE cable from the drive so you only have power going to it, you should be able to put discs in the drive and eject still. Place an ordinary software/audio disc into the drive and watch what the LEDS do - each manufacture has different meanings for those LEDS. For example, once the drive is closed the green LED may flash for a few seconds and go on steady, telling you the drive see's the disc OK - if this is the case then you have a fault elsewhere.
If the LEDS work out OK then try the drive on the Primary IDE, as Slave - if the issue remains then you have ruled out a fault with the Secondary IDE cable and channel.
If still failing get the latest BIOS update and flash the firmware of the ROM with the latest version, check with Samsung first.

Thank you for the reply and the basic troubleshooting ideas. Although I did not outline to that level of detail. all of that was pursued. FYI, Samsung was absolutely no help as that is a "no-longer a supported drive", I was told to talk to the laptop vendor. The laptop vendor (Sager) and their behind-the-scenes manufacturer (Clevo) were no help at all on that issue except to suggest I send them the laptop so they could replace the drive.
The precise problem is that I cannot flash the EPROM chip physically located in the CD device. It was in mid-flash when the computer locked up and the computer no longer sees the drive in bios, during boot, or in windows. I tried booting to Linux and to older versions of DOS via diskette with similar results. The only way that I can imagine to flash that chip is to remove it from the burner and flash it with a compatible, external EPROM burner (that I do not have access to). I have just replaced the drive with an 8x Toshiba (hence the on-board EPROM) and all is well.
Thanks again for the assistance!

Yes it sounds as if the Flash burned out the chip, unfortantley that’s the big downfall when flashing the chip goes wrong - glad to hear all is well after replacing.