Strange. Have you tried uninstalling the drives from the device manager? Maybe even the IDE channels in the device manager too. Can't hurt. Reboot and windows (assume is XP?) should install everything automatically. Hopefully will reset all settings.
I had a problem the other day where my DVD drives were running seriously slow. Turns out that XP turns DMA mode (ie. fast) off if writes reject 6 times (dodgy blank disks) and reverts to PIO (slow and conky). Doesn't tell you though. And you can't switch it back to DMA either (says it does, but doesn't stick). Just uninstalled IDE channels and windows resorted everything on a reboot.
Cheers
I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing