Mom's CD burner problem maybe figured out

Well, I finally decided to try reinstalling mom's CD burner, an OEM model Samsung SW252s, Rev. 901. There was a firmware flash utility on Dell's support site to make it Rev. 902 - the reason? It was supposed to correct drive detection which as Rev.901 it had problems (and I can't tell you how much of a problem it was!!!) and eventually ended up non-functional. Even though Samsung had a rev.953 for the drive, I decided to stick with Dell's updates and flashed the drive. Restart the computer, the desktop comes back up, but I'm having problems getting the Device Manager to come up so I can check that yes, it's now Rev.902. Eventually, I get it and see that. But now the system is sluggish. My Computer takes forever (actually not at all) to detect what drives are attached to the system.

The CD burner is giving me problems again. AH! But this time, I think I know what's the problem!! So anywho, I reboot and it's doing what it did back in January, so I disconnect the burner and make the Mitsumi CDROM drive the Master again. System comes right up, Device Manager has no problems, My Computer loads up fast.

The Samsung burner has a problem where IDE detection messes up the entire computer. I can't use that drive ever again. I knew some day I would figure out the problem.

So right now I'm looking for another decent CD burner, a model that recognizes doing an 80 minute CD burn. The CD burner in my other P4 tower won't do anything over 70 minutes. I want to find an IDE power extender to get those running.

Actually, I'm also wondering if the motherboard in Mom's Dell Dimension 2400 is having problems with more than one device on the same IDE channel? Or if given enough time, the Samsung burner Rev.901 would have also done the problem with booting up anyway, since the system came right up after putting it back in and before I flashed it.

I guess I confirmed my theory or whatever - there was something wrong with that Samsung burner from the start and it just got worse over time.