cdrom/cdr trouble or ide1 problem: BIG TROUBLE I think

[Cheryl Homiak]

Ok, I've done some upgrades in debian lately (woody to sid) but i don't think
the problem happened when I did the upgrade. I'm afraid this may be hardware
failure with a capital H.
I suddenly go and am still getting  "not a valid block device" for /dev/record
and /dev/cdrom and the devices for which those are symbolic links. In my
dmesg.txt, I do get
    ide1: BM-DMA at 0xe408-0xe40f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:DMA

but the cdrom and cdr aren't later recognized in the dmesg as they usually are
and nothing is mentioned about the scsi drivers loading. to troubleshoot,
changed back in kernel to ide/atapi with same results. The cdr (first drive on
ide1) still opens and closes with a button push and actualy can still be read in
DOS. The cdrom won't open unless you slide the tray open manually and doesn't
respond to commands. Doesn't work in dOS either but I may just not have figured
out how to load two cdrom drives in DOS.
Worst of all, "cat /proc/interrupts" shows no irq for ide1 (it has been and
still should be but isn't, 15). I have this terrible
feeling it's a problem directly with my ide1 or at the very least a cable. If
so, I am thankful it isn't ide0 so I can at least opperate my system.
I imagine the final diagnosis will have to come from somebody opening this up
and looking (and charging me a lot of money!) but does this sound like a
hardware problem?
Is there any other possible explanation that would involve fixing something on
my OS rather than major repair?
Thanks.

Cheryl