Ok this is a bit of a long story but these drives were both functioning perfectly and had no troubles till now. Both are still connected perfectly and I have checked power and ribbon connections more times than I can recall I am hopelessly dumbfounded. I decided to use my dvd drive but unfortunately is not listed in my computer or windows explorer. (I am running windows XP pro) the drivers are still installed in device manager and it says both drives are working. Scanning the web I did find this Using all his recommendation’s windows will still not let see the drives, oh and when a disk is inserted it still will not auto boot. After using the regedit tip he gave my computer had a hard time booting windows. Recently I had my power supply go up in a cloud of smoke and have not used the dvd + r or CD drive since, so I am not sure if the drives have run since. when the power supply blew CPU and everything else has been running fine, no disk was in use when the power supply blew. If anyone has any tips or suggestions please let me know.
Fixed!!!!! turns out while working on putting in the new power supply i damaged the ribbon. does not explain why the two drives were still in device manager though... oh well who cares problem solved
