[macnext1]

I wanted to find out what was on my 'restore' DVD disk from Gateway -- there was nothing. The drive just showed a blank screen. That was on the D drive so I moved the disk to the E drive -- no change. I also tried another 'restore' disk I had gotten from "E Machines" -- it wouldn't read (I also tried doing a scan with Avast on both disks on both drives -- that wouldn't work either. I did find a disk from Janome (software for my wife's embroidery machine) that I can open and I see 3 folders. When I scan it with Avast it appears to be scanning but when it gets to 85% complete it just quits (no message good/bad). Sooo, I started trying to trouble shoot that problem and got to a point where it wanted to know if I was tring to use more than 4 IDE or ESDI devices. Well I don't have a clue. I have an internal DVD/RW drive and an internal CD R/W drive, plus the C hard drive. Those 3 came with the Gateway when I bought it. I installed a USB external hard drive (SimpleTech ) a few years ago to use for backups. Everthing has been working fine (as far as I know -- I don't use the D or E drives very often -- so they may have died a year ago and I wouldn't know it). I recently added a USB Seagate hard disk, someone recommended that because it had better backup software. Soooo, does that mean I have more than 4 drives now? I guess that they would all be using different drivers. But perhaps I have shot myself in the foot by adding the SeaGate drive. Anyway that's where I am.

So anybody got any idesa? Have I shot myself in the foot? Are my drives IDE or ESDI (how would I find out?)?

Begging for help yet once again.

Mac