2nd dvd drive always reads/writes too slow

[spiritgumm]

Have two dvd drives on the same IDE cable, set to "Cable select"; a NEC 3550 is in the "1" locale - slave, and the Philips is "0"- master. Both are 16x. The problem is with the slave drive (same thing happened with NEC 2500 in this situation): The NEC only reads/writes at 1x (using Shrink or Decryptor). It wrote only slightly faster (like 2x) when I was reading from the Philips and burning directly to NEC.
On it's own, the Philips works at max capacity, and it's quicker to only use it for everything (read to computer and then burn with Philips) than to use the NEC for anything. I did update the firmware for the NEC but this doesn't change anything.
I'd like to be able to use either drive in any combination of data transferring. The way things work now, I might as well not have a 2nd drive.
Almost forgot - HELP!!!

[harley2ride]

Either try a new ATA cable, or try hooking up one drive on IDE 1 and the other drive on IDE 2. That is the best way to do it anyway.

[spiritgumm]

Before I open the computer again, I noticed the harddrive is location "0", like the Philips dvd drive. Is this relevant?
Also noted there's 2 Primary IDE Channels and a Secondary IDE Channel listed in DEVICE MANAGER. Each has different Current Transfer Modes quoted for Device 0 and Device 1:
Primary IDE Channel - Dev0= Ultra DMA mode5. Dev1= Not applicable
Primary IDE Channel - Dev0 = Ultra DMA mode2. Dev1= PIO mode
Secondary IDE Channel - Dev0= Not applicable. Dev1= Not applicable

I forgot to mention both dvd drives are on the same IDE cable.
I'm guessing the second Primary IDE Channel pertains to my two dvd drives. It's Properties says it will look for "DMA if available" for each device, but it only used PIO for Device1. I've read everything should be set to DMA, not PIO (which is why I figure this is my slow 2nd drive). Is there a way I can just change the setting to DMA? I don't have an extra IDE cable at the moment.

[ricoman]

I had the same problem, it turned out that the slave was not enabled (not talking about the DMA) To check, reboot and access the setup, at the Main window, look at Secondary IDE Slave and make sure it is set to Auto. Try that if all else fails.

[redwudz]

Primary IDE Channel - Dev0 = Ultra DMA mode2. Dev1= PIO mode

That may be your problem. If you can't change it to DMA with the selector, just uninstall that IDE channel and reboot. That's the easiest way to reset it. It won't damage your data.

This commonly happens when the drive has 6 consecutive read failures. The OS will reset it to PIO in the hopes it will still work marginally. Unfortunately it won't set it back by itself. Sometimes uninstalling won't fix it, if so you may have do make a registry change.

[spiritgumm]

This has been a problem since the start; didn't require 6 errors to make it set to PIO. Maybe it just doesn't like NEC chipset. I've seen this problem (and same solutions) posted elsewhere but not alot of success.
None of the suggestions have worked (haven't tried changing registries as I'm not comfortable with that idea), so I might get another IDE cable. Will copying on the fly (directly from dvd drive to dvd drive) work between two different IDE cables? Even though having dvd drives on separate IDE channels is recommended, why would they make it an option to have 2 drives on one IDE channel (with master/slave settings) if there's a strong possiblity they don't work properly?

[harley2ride]

Preferred setup is is :
Primary IDE - Master is main HD, Slave is CD or DVD drive
Secondary IDE - Master is main DVD/CD Burner, Slave is another HD, or another CD/DVD burner.
If copying on the fly, go from Secondary IDE Master, to Primary Slave. Burning on the fly is not highly recommended, but it is possible and does often work well. Use jumpers to set Master/Slave on each drive, if there are any issues with using cable select.

[spiritgumm]

NERO and SONIC software have the on-the fly option of recording, and I was looking forward to cutting down the recording time, like dvd duplicators.
Just out of curiosity, if I put both dvd drives on the Secondary IDE, will I still have this problem of slave drive too slow? I suppose it's unpredictable and I'll have to find out for myself.
Does it "help" on-the-fly recording if the dvd drives are on the same IDE?

[harley2ride]

NERO and SONIC software have the on-the fly option of recording, and I was looking forward to cutting down the recording time, like dvd duplicators.
Just out of curiosity, if I put both dvd drives on the Secondary IDE, will I still have this problem of slave drive too slow? I suppose it's unpredictable and I'll have to find out for myself.
Does it "help" on-the-fly recording if the dvd drives are on the same IDE?

No, it makes it worse. Ultimate setup is HD's on SATA, and opticals on IDE.
If you copy from Primary IDE to Secondary IDE device, you are only having a possible slow down while HD is communicating with chipset on Primary IDE (which is intermittent.)

[spiritgumm]

Given my description, are my dvd drives on the same IDE as my HD? Or are the two Primary IDEs separate? I see a free cable-plug in the computer (Dell 510) but the plug is too short to fit a dvd drive. I hope I won't have to call Dell (or is it Dehli?) tech support...

[handyguy]

You can download hacked FW to make your NEC read at faster speeds once you get this stuff working right.

[spiritgumm]

Called Dell, they explained I don't really have a Secondary IDE... Anyway, I needed to change the BIOS setting, and now both drives seem to work optimally.
I'm alittle nervous about changing the FW on the NEC. Hopefully the legit FW will be fast enough, especially on-the-fly recording.