How can I get my primary IDE circuit to accept my CD-rom as a slave device?
All my varied attempts to connect any slave device on to my primary IDE circuit results in non booting into the C drive. With no slave device connected everything works fine.

Are the jumpers set correctly?

If your Master is set to Master the slave needs to be set to slave.

If your Master is set to Cable Select the slave needs to be set to Cable Select.

Have you tried swapping the cable for a known good one? Is it 80 conductor?

I presume you're using the Master and Slave jumper positions on the devices as opposed to Cable Select.

Are your bios settings for IDE devices set at AUTO?

If the cable and individual devices are known good, then your motherboard controller is suspect.