CD-ROM Drive Conflict

Has anyone had trouble with having a rewriter and a reader on one IDE channel?
I have a Liteon rewriter and a very old Creative 24X reader together and I find I get strange problems. These include Windows failing to startup, or shut down, and sometimes the drive 'disappears' too. The only solution seems to be to disconnect the reader. At least I think this is the problem, as since I disconnected the drive things have worked fine (so far). I have changed everything else in this PC trying to solve these intermittent problems!

Is there a driver or patch I should be using to make these drives work together?

Any ideas?

Thanx

 

Since there is almost no utility to having the old drive installed, why not just put it in the closet? The CD-RW drive will do everything the old one did, and more.