Thanks, guys you have given me a lot to think about and check out later on today. Both CD drives are IDE, and nothing is stuck in either one. I managed to use a paperclip to check both.

I will also try different cables, see if that is the issue, as well as check jumper settings, but I know for a fact the CD-ROMs are set to master, so maybe the ZIP is messed up.

As for the button, I don't think it's that, because I even pulled the drawer back a good inch and reached in the CD bezel and pressed the button on the drive directly with my hand.

I might just unplug the zip drive, since it's an afterthought. I do like how they custom engineered the drive to use the smaller PC floppy drive power cable.

It will be a while until I can check any of this out, it's 2 in the morning and I don't want to wake anyone up.

Thanks for all your help.

-digital