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  1. Member
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    This might seem like a silly question, but before I tear into my box I wanted to make sure it'll work.

    I have 2 HD's on one IDE, and a cd burner and dvd burner on another IDE. I'm wanting to install my DVD-ROM so I can use that for playing and ripping, and save my burner for burning.

    My question is....can I yank one of my HD's and plug the DVD-ROM in there, using the same cable? Does it matter if a HD is also using that IDE?

    Thus far I've never had any problems with XP recognizing anything...and I don't care to screw it up now. Any assistance would be appreciated.
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  2. Member
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    Since your DVD burner can burn CDs, why nopt repalce the CD burner with DVD-ROM?
    Hello.
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  3. Mod Neophyte redwudz's Avatar
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    I think Tommyknocker has the right idea. Generally, it's not good to mix high speed devices (HD's) on the same channel as lower speed devices (CD's, DVD's) This causes problems with harddrives. Another option if you have enough power supply and room is to get a PCI IDE card and plug your new drive into it. Just make sure the card will work with DVD or CD devices.
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  4. Member
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    Thank you both for your responses.

    1) I've considered removing the cd burner since the dvd burner will burn cd's. The fact that the dvd burner only burns cd's at 16x, instead of the 48x I'm accustomed to, was the main reason I was pondering the HD situation. Tiz still a viable ideer tho.

    2) I did not know that it's not a good idea to mix high speed items with low speed. This is the type of info I was hoping to get. Is it safe to assume tho, that while it may not be the best option...it'd still work? What can I expect to happen if I try this? Keep in mind that I'll be using the DVD-ROM to rip DVD's to the HD. Will this be a problem if they share an IDE.

    3) A friend mentioned the PCI/IDE card thing too. I know nuttin about that type stuff so I was left with a deer in the headlight look. Gonna price these cards and look into this option.

    Once again....thx for your time and knowledge !
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  5. It will work mixing hard drives and atapi devices on the same channel, but as mentioned both devices will slow down to that of the slowest device on that channel. If you want to keep it all, your best option is a pci-ide controller card.
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  6. Hard Drive and CD-ROM on same IDE channel = sssllllloooowwwwwww aaaacccccceeeeesssssss tttttiiiimmmmmeeeee tttttooooo yyyyyoooouuurrrr hhhhaaarrrddddrrriiiivvvvveeee

    I had the same problem when I got mine. You'll definitley notice the difference
    Read this post on 3 IDE devices and 2 hardrives question and it should answer what ever you might want to know or get you started at least.
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  7. Member
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    Yup....between what you guys have told me here, and what that other thread filled in, it helped me alot and answered all my questions. Still don't know what I'm gonna do, but I now know what I'm NOT gonna do.

    Thank u all.
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  8. Mod Neophyte redwudz's Avatar
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    If you are interested in a PCI IDE controller that will work with all types of drives, I use this Promise controller http://www.computergate.com/products/item.cfm?prodcd=AIDP13TX2 about $35US, works great.
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  9. Member
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    More options?

    Get an external firewire or USB2 case and put in there the CD-burner.

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  10. Banned
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    This is more like an old saw than valuable advice.

    "The most valuable advice for connecting IDE devices, however, is to always use common sense. For example, you might want to avoid using an old CD-ROM drive in combination with a brand-new hard drive. For some controllers, you still can't rule out the possibility that the total performance may suffer because of very different protocols and transmission capacities. "

    Note the words "might", "old CD-ROM", "For some controllers", "can't rule out the posssibility", "may suffer", "very different protocols and transmission capacities".

    That is a quote from tomshardware.com.

    Everyone keeps saying the channel will automatically drop to the lowest device's speed. A 133 drive will fall to the speed of an optical drive. It's simply not true, and if you can show me where it is written, I'll eat these words without salt.

    The devices will take turns and in its turn, a 133 drive will transfer at its design speed, an optical will do so at its design speed.

    Now, I know someone here is going to tell me he has this very problem becaue he is using his 10 year old 2X CD-ROM (hey, it still works, I don't wanna buy a new one). But try being realistic, Try installing a CD-ROM as slave and benchmark the disk drive both ways. Not just, well, I read that in post such and such, here's the link.

    Repeating an old wive's tale does not make it so.
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  11. Correct.
    Having an optical drive and harddrive on the same controller does not mean that they will slow down. The current spec allows the drives to continue at full speed.

    Actually its best to group tasks on one controller.
    If you only had one harddrive and one cdrom, it would be best to put them on different controllers so each can use the full bandwidth of each controller. That is the best setup but with crowded systems that isnt so.

    e.g. Lets say you have HDD1 (os/programs) and HDD2 (project files) on controller 1 while your CD burner and dvdrom are on controller 2. If you ripped a DVD (dvdrom to HDD1) while you burned a CD (HDD2 to CD burner) then your tasks are spread out across controllers and both controllers would pause to take time for each task. That could result in a buffer underrun error for the burned cd and much longer read/write time for the dvd rip. Slow down under this setup could happen with any task that crosses controllers, even just reading a CD or installing a program while doing something else across controllers would take longer.

    Best for that setup would have HDD1 the dvdrom on controller 1 while HDD2 and cdburner on the other to separate tasks. There would be no slow down as each controller is dedicated to the one task at hand.

    But with 5 drives I would either get an IDE controller PCI expantion card or if you have a spare PC, dedicate it to ripping, burning or whatever.
    I had 5 drives at one time (3 harddrives 2 optical) and i just had the harddrive I didnt need unconnected. If I wanted to access my project files and not my mp3/files drive I would disconnect one and switch the IDE to the other and boot back up. Not the best setup but it worked.

    If you change the setup of your drives, just make sure the jumpers are set correctly (master/slave).
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  12. I'm not saying anyone is wrong or right but...

    I found this at this website IDE CONFIGURATION
    Select drives carefully
    The manner in which the hard drive(s) and other hardware are physically set-up can have a dramatic effect on performance. Try to remember these principles:

    1 Two devices co-exist on the same cable - primary as Master, secondary as Slave
    2 Different drives operate at different speeds
    3 All drives on the same cable always operate at the speed of the slower drive
    4 Smaller (older) drives tend to be slower than larger (newer) drives
    5 A drive tends to operate faster as the Master device
    6 The most important hard drive should always be set as Master, and SHOULD NOT have a slow IDE device on that cable e.g. a CD-ROM or a small (older) Hard Drive
    7 Having the most important software (the Operating System or Windows 95/98) on the fastest Hard Drive has a noticeable effect
    8 It is best to disable any non-existent slave device(s) in the CMOS set-up; then the BIOS will not wait for a non-response
    9 CD-ROM drives (usually PIO Mode 3 devices) are slower than HDDs (usually PIO Mode 4 or Ultra). Enabling DMA bus mastering for a HD on a CD-ROM shared channel may cause problems.
    • There are multiple possible selections depending on your own requirements. However with the above in mind you should be able to avoid obvious pitfalls.
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  13. You should beable to just disconnect the 2nd harddrive and put the optical drive in with the same jumper setting (im assuming slave).
    But I would really recommend getting an IDE PCI card (2 controllers on the card).
    Then you could have all of your drives connected and most of them on their own controller without any issues/flaws.


    Having two harddrives on the same controller vs having a harddrive/opticaldrive on the same controller are both optimial setups depending on how are going to use them.
    But both setups have flaws and what is needed is to figure out what is best for the use/file setup and where the tasks occur (between which drives).

    Having 2 cdroms share the same controller is great for on the fly burnering cd to cd but is terrible when they are both talking to the harddrive on the other controller.

    Having a harddrive and an optical drive is great on the same controller when talking to eachother (ripping) but when they both start doing tasks that cross to IDE devices on the other controller, performance suffers.

    The slowdown that people talk about when having a harddrive share with an optical drive is not because the harddrive will slow down to the speed of the optical drive (thats false, but with the old ATA spec it was true) but rather when they are doing different tasks across the controllers at the same time and they take turns. The cdrom will take longer to do its turn and make the harddrive wait longer. But that is a fault of having your drives setup not opimal for how you use them.
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