Windows98 wont start unless CD is drive!

I’ve inherited a PC with a peculiar problem.

It’s running Windows98 and has two hard drives (on one IDE cable), one CD drive and one CD-RW (both on the secondary IDE cable).

I have to have a CD in the CD-RW drive (doesn’t matter if it’s the Windows disk or a music CD) otherwise it won’t start Windows. Once the PC has started Windows I can remove the CD and use both drives perfectly well.

I cannot find any reason for this. Does anyone have any ideas? I looked using sfc.exe and msconfig but cannot find anything out of the ordinary. I don’t really want to start formatting the drives or re-installing Windows as everything else works fine.

Dave Mead