Ripping/reading speed IDE channel or firmware limit

[koinhelgo]

It is widely touted (On these forums) that getting a DVD Rom drive to rip DVDs is better than using your burner.
However I can rip upto 9.5x using my writer drive but my DVD Rom only rips/reads at 2x. This isn't a great problem I just rip to HD then use DVD shrink to burn to writer - this is quickest way anyway cos DVDShrink always wants to take 1-1.5 hours to rip and encode.
However when I copy disc to disc it is a problem, the read buffer drops dramatically at times and it takes ages to copy - 8 mins to copy a CDR even though set at 32x.
Now my question is this is it necassarily the firmware that has locked the ROM drive or is it maybe because the ROM is the slave - primary I think but not sure. The writer is the master and it is a SATA hard drive which I imagine is on it's own channel. There is no new firmware available for my DVD Rom drive so I cannot unlock it. However if I get a new burner to replace the ROM (and presumably update its firmware) will I necassarily get better performance from it if it is "strapped" by being a slave.
I'm thinking of getting a new burner due to compatability issues with my portable player - which doesn't play back ups I make even though it plays other DVDRs and my main standalone plays my backups fine.
I don't want to fork out say £40-50 for a new burner to be stuck with something that doesn't read better than 2x.

[nasdravi]

Hi,
all liteon dvdr drives that i know of, rip at max speed (ie 9-10x).
Some other drives (like pioneer) require a firmware upgrade.
good luck

[mattyboy]

the NEC3500 rips at mad speeds after you put an "other" firmware on it.

[Richard_G]

It's only the US market drives that are rip locked. My LiteOn DVD-ROM drives rips at about 12x and new NEC 3520A burner at around 10x. My old Pioneer A05 ripped at around 8x. All straight from the box with no firmware changes.

I have hard drives (not SATA) on the Primary IDE channel and both DVD drives on the secondary (burner as master, ROM as slave). No problems ripping or straight disk to disk copy. I had problems a while ago when I had a no-name DVD-ROM drive which refused to work in DMA mode and insisted on running in PIO. Make sure both drives have DMA enabled and are running it.