" I thought the bios chose which drive was being used so i threw the master slave covers out"

I assume you mean jumpers? To some extent you're right, but you really do need them. Unless you do cable select, which can be a bit flaky and then where on the cable they are matters more, and you need the right sort of cable for it.

IDE drives also work fine for me here.

As above, make sure you have it cabled up right.

That means master *should* be on the end of the IDE cable (and make sure it's the correct sort, should be an 80 not 40 wire one for HDs), the slave nearer the mobo. Also be sure to set master/slave jumpers correctly.