Help, can't get multi-drives to work

I have gotten my battered Polaroid DRM 2001-G machine back to life, after a long road. It had been dropped before I owned it, and I got it in close to new condition, from a reseller years ago. It never booted up right, and the tray was flaky for several years I have owned it. Apparently it had been dropped, then rigged to work. It had a broken spoke off the disc tray, and was rigged to make the tray catch the next spoke(by cocking the tray with a wad of foam from a DVD package. On top of that, the the power board had a corner broken off, that separated the top trace on the board near the harness connections. Not sure the fan ever worked, or if it was taken out by the broken trace on the power board; but I finally lost the big capacitor, and two others were bulging. I jumpered the broken trace by soldering in a wire, replaced 3 capacitors, and replaced the fan; and it works better than it ever has. I don't have to boot it from a wall switch anymore. It is also more stable, and not wasting discs. I also found several screw mounts broken off; which makes me think it was dropped.
I got the new Sony drive in the unit, which took some plumber's strap mounted on the rear side mounts of the drive; then through drilled holes in the bottom. Two sheet metal screws driven just to either side of the front mounts through the bottom that keep the front secured left to right, a screw up through the very front that was already there was made longer....and a quarter to level the tray through the door, up top between the drive and the upper front bracket. If I had it to do again, I would cut a square piece of aluminum slightly larger than the drive, mount the plate to the bottom of the drive, then mount the plate. The beveled mounts for the original drive, and the holes very close to the edges of the new drive; make a difficult retrofit.
Now, I got a new burner, and I have gotten it to recognize my WD3200AAJB Caviar SE hard drive(152 hours of recording time showing). It wasn't pretty, or easy, with what I got to work with; but it seems to work great. I also made up a molex chord, using the original non standard burner chord. I took the original chord that fed the burner, chopped it in half; then I salvaged a pair of molex plugs on a harness, with a floppy plug at the end(from an old burned power supply someone gave me). I put one end of the original cut chord, to the power board end of the salvaged cable; then cut the floppy connector off, and put the other end of the original drive cable on that end. I used wire nuts, but crimps will also work fine. So what ya got, is two molex connectors in the middle of the old chord basically. This way you could plug the old drive back if you want, and have an extra molex. I would not use more than one at a time, lest you know the wattage of the burner consumption on the power board. If you will never use the original drive and it is trash; you can just put a molex on the original cable end feeding the drive. Be sure to go wire for wire, and don't switch the blacks(though it should not make any difference).
Now my problem; using the above mentioned hard-drive(WD3200AAJB Caviar SE), and the original drive; I can not seem to get both drives to show. I have a proper 40 conductor twin IDE ribbon cable, flipped properly at the board. I tried flipping, and flopping, and swapping every way I could. The best I got, was a hot swap that gave me a garbled menu, and a strange red lock symbol in the preview box. Nothing worked. I sat them right there and verified operation by themselves; but as soon as I put them both on together, it went into a perpetual boot cycle most of the time. Can someone tell me if this Caviar SE drive might be the difference, and keeping them from booting together? I even tried erasing, with both drives on the harness; but still would not boot together. By themselves they seem to boot fine. I have not run the larger drive past the 37 hours to see if the time is really there yet; but it shows anyway. Anyone got any idea at all? I am thinking my next step might be to get the exact older drive, we know that works. Maybe someone knows, if this particular drive I am trying to use, will work in the multi-drive set up for the Polroid. It seems to do fine by itself so far. Comes right up.

Thank You, I know this is long; I have been at this a while. Sorry for any re-posting.

Thank you for responding. I almost added some mention of the jumpers; but got so long I got sidetracked. Both hard drives are set to "drive select". I have not tried them with jumpers set to master. Is that a possibility? Perhaps? That would certainly be a nice easy solution, I can only hope : ) Something I have not tried. Who is making a Lites On recorder these days; or are you putting Lites on in a Polaroid DVR. Unless the Magnavox or Toshiba is it, are Lites On? Wish I had not zapped my Lites on drive during this process. It did not prepare discs for the Polaroid; but was a great drive. That is what happens when you work in the dark, and are going blind. I can see the little burn out resistors with the hi-res spot on the magnifying glass; but no way I can do anything with micro/nano circuits. I will try the jumpers for the drives next, and get back. Thanks again.

This is very interesting about the clones of Lites on. I don't suppose these DVRs are as pliable as the Polaroid is? The big benefit with my Poloroid, is that it doesn't block everything to the drive. Much better at getting stuff to disc. Less hassle with copy protect, when changing format to disc. It is highly likely my attempt to use the Lites on drive, was a brainless attempt to use the -DVD discs, that worked with the original drive. I am thinking now it would have worked with +DVD format discs. The Sony drive I have in there now works great, but does not prepare and record on all -DVD discs that the original drive did. I am not sure -DVD are suppose to be used on any of these drives as listed; but they worked on the original Polaroid drive(philips, verbatim, and memorex discs) and the Sony did not like the Philips so far, but did take the high dollar Verbatim. This way I can watch movies on my computer, if I want. I need to read the posts on the Magnavox units, as Wally Mart still sells those on line. If my Polaroid finally gives out.
Right now my Polaroid is back from the dead again, and I am 2/3 of the way to success. Just have to figure this multi drive issue out. I spent the morning swapping jumpers between the drives. Unfortunately it was a no go. I tried everything but slave-slave on both drives. I did get the two to boot with one set on "master with slave" and the other set to "slave" using the jumper. Unfortunately, only the master drive showed. I tried master on both, master with slave on both, and the select position on both. I think I even tried master on one, and select on the other. Mostly just got the boot loop, over and over trying to boot. I am wondering if the SE drive might be complicating things for a multi hook-up, with a drive that is not SE. Only thing I can think. Also possible I guess that the 320 drive has some proclivity for dysfunction on a multi set-up. I may try a standard WD caviar drive 250; that others claim to work, see what that does. Unless I get some other ideas here. That is my only idea going forward.

I think you have come to this conclusion, just before I have:) Seems I have made a slight error in understanding exactly what is possible with IDE, outside a SCSI operation. I went back a 3rd time, and found some additional details; and what I thought was happening, was not correct, but more what you said. I do not regret running it down however; but some words from a tech last week, are coming back to me. You can't string multiple drives, unless they support SCSI. My conclusion, is that I am not dealing with SCSI here, and the original project posts, were not stringing multi-drives, but swapping them. I may not have been the only one. This still works, and makes much more sense, the more I think about it. So, my solution will be; some drive cases fro a few drives, a good round external IDE cable, an external IDE power adapter; and I can swap some drives as I want. Still a good operation, I can be happy with. Been ordering my retrofit operation today. Thanks for the help and advice. Learning is not always free; but I could have went way off in the wrong direction, and cost myself a bit more. Something just did not feel right about it; but I couldn't figure what it was. I wondered how the DVR could combine menus for various drives, and address the variable content, in a useable menu system. The polaroid does a lot; but it is not magic:D