Configuring my drives.

F

future guy

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 6, 2004
Messages
133
I've had my DVD-RW and my IBM Deskstar 60gb running in 2 different computers, both as master. In my new rig I'm trying to just use one IDE cable to set them both up, I have the HDD set as master and my burner set as the slave, but it refuses to work properly when I boot, so I have to set the jumpers on the burner back to master and use it on IDE 2 again, anyone have any ideas or suggestions?
 
I don't remember why, but I know it's not a good idea to combine hard drives and optical drives on the same channel.

As to your problem, make sure the boot sequence priority in your BIOS is set correctly, and check to see if both drives are being recognized.
 
you only have 3 drives but you want to mix optica with HD??

make one HD (the one with your os) master, and the 2nd slave on primary ide (IDE 1) then set the optical to master on 2ndary ide (ide 2) master should be furthest away from the mobo
 
I agree, keep the DVD burner on IDE channel 2 as Master. You do not want it to be a Slave drive on your IDE channel 1 with your Hard Drive.

Also, if you are still interested in placing the DVD burner on IDE channel 1, make sure that your ribbon cable is placed the correct way. The Hard Drive should be at the end of the ribbon cable and the DVD burner should be in the middle slot.
 
Alright, I suppose I'll just leave it the way it is. I really appreciate the helpful replies from all of you, thanks.
 
modern HDDs and Opticals "should" easily share the same cable
the reason why you would not have done that is the past, was that independent device timing (that is the protocol that allows master slave setting to work) is unabkle to function when one device is in PIO and the other in DMA, so both would default to PIO (not a good thing)

But modern Opticals are DMA mode 2, while modern HDDs are mode 5, so there "should" be no problems.
Independent device timing would allow each to function at their own highest mode


however....Parallel ATA is experiencing more problems as the standard ages, till at this point its arguably past it reliable threshold, and all sort of issues are cropping up.

SATA and the 7 Deadly Sins of Parallel ATA
and
ATA Not So Frequently Asked Questions
Or: Why Ribbon Cables are unsuitable for RF transmission of data
@ Lost Circuits

"The following article was written by snn47 to address some of the issues associated with standard ribbon cables and the use of e.g. removable drive racks as an attempt to share some insight into factors that can adversely affect the life or reliability of of desktop Hard Disk Drives. Specifically, issues like why some drives are working in some systems and not in others, the impact of cable routing and why is it that the drive manufacturers always recommend using their own cables (if supplied with the drive). "
Click to expand...

now that Ive muddied the waters a bit :p
let me add this, if you can get the drives to be properly recognized in the config you want
and there are no data transmition issues and even though IDE is sequential, with only one device able to transfer data at a time

the speed of the interface is perfectly sufficent to burn from a HDD to an Optical that are both on the same cable reliably, because of modern buffers, and software improvements.
One of my boxes is setup with a shared cable, and Ive yet to burn a single coaster

Saturating the bus is easier said than done, here is a nice little freeware ap that will illustrate how under utilized you IDE bus actually is.

IDE Bus Utilization Monitor

on to trying to actually get it to work
as EnderW mentioned, are they both recognized in the BIOS properly?
have you tried setting the jumpers on both to cable select?
 
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