Pinnacle micro optical drive

I HAVE A GATEWAY 7210 SERVER - DUAL 600MHZ INTEL PIII'S - 756MB RAM. I AM RUNNING WINDOWS 2000 ADVANCED SERVER. IDE CHANNEL "A" CONTAINS A 30GB SYSTEM DRIVE WITH A 5GB PAGE FILE PARTITION. SCSI "A" CHANNEL CONTROLS THE SIX HOT SWAP SCSI'S THIS SYSTEM SPORTS, THE FIRST OF WHICH ALSO CONTAINS A 5GB PAGE FILE PARTITION. CHANNEL "B" CONTROLS A SEAGATE STT20000N TAPE DRIVE AND A PINNACLE MICRO APEX 4.6 OPTICAL DRIVE. ON P.O.S.T. THE APEX SHOWS POSITION 0, THE TAPE DRIVE POSITION 3. THERE ARE TIMES I GET A MESSAGE AFTER SCSI LISTINGS OF FAULTY CABLE OR IMPROPER TERMINATION, AND ALL STOPS THERE. THIS IS NOT, I BELIEVE, TO BE THE CASE. BOTH ENDS OF THE SCSI CABLE ARE TERMINATED. IF I REBOOT, IT WILL PROCEED PAST THIS POINT TO STARTUP. THE OPTICAL DRIVE IS THE ISSUE HERE. ON "MY COMPUTER ", THE DRIVE IS SHOWN IN THE DEVICE REPRESENTATION. IF I RIGHT CLICK THE APEX, THE SYSTEM STALLS AND I END UP CLOSING IT OUT ON TASK MANAGER. IN ADD/REMOVE HARDWARE, THE WIZARD INDICATES THIS DEVICE IS WORKING PROPERLY. ON "MY COMPUTER "/MANAGE/DISC MANAGEMENT IT SHOWS ACTIVE. IN DEVICE MANAGER IT INDICATES THE CURRENT DRIVER IS INSTALLED, JUST THE SAME, I SEARCH OUT AN UPDATE FROM MICROSOFT IN THE SEARCH LOCATION OPTIONS. IN ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS/REMOTE STORAGE/REMOVABLE STORAGE/LOCATION/ IT IS SHOWN WITH A RED ICON. IN THE SCSI CONTROLS IT WILL NOT FORMAT A DISC, WITH A MESSAGE "HOST ADAPTER STATUS: UNEXPECTED FREE BUS" "SCSI CDB 15 11 00 00 0C 00 ". THE SCSI CONTROL IS AN ADAPTEC A.I.C.-7896. THE SYSTEM LOG IS FULL - LITERALLY - WITH ERROR ICONS WHOSE PROPERTIES INDICATE: THE DRIVER DETECTED A CONTROLLER ERROR ON \DEVICE\SCSI\AIC78u22. THE SYSTEM BLOWS THROUGH P.O.S.T. THEN DRAGS THROUGH STARTUP. ON OCCASSION I GET A BLUE SCREEN MESSAGE INDICATING CHECK NEW HARDWARE ECT, A REBOOT SOLVES THAT. I AM ALMOST CERTAIN THE PROBLEM IS OBVIOS - BUT NOT, APPARENTLY TO ME - ANY HELP OUT THERE ?