MANY dropped frames on second drive and zero on primary

[dannee]

I am unable to capture to second hard drive (C) without dropping MANY frames - approx. 2\3 of the frames are dropped however when I capture to Drive G - one with OS-Windows XP-Home on it, I have ZERO dropped frames.
Since adding a second hard drive and changing from ME to XP, I have captured 2 movies to Drive C without any problems ( after all the updates) and they look fantastic and then all of sudden, I started dropping frames and choppy audio. As far as I know the only thing that changed after capturing last movie with no problems is that I installed Movie Factory. I uninstalled MF but still dropping frames to Drive C.
I am using Hollywood Bridge & VHS tapes. To test if the Bridge is my problem I captured with my Panasonic digital camcorder via firewire ( same as Bridge) but same thing happens - many dropped frames when capture to Drive C and zero dropped frames to Drive G.
I am obviously missing something. Please, can anybody help me. I have spent hours trying to figure this out but no luck. Drive C has been formatted - 40 GB. XP on 80 GB hard drive, memory - 608 MB, Ultra DMA on both drives, 1.2GHz AMD Athlon, Integrated Savage4 AGP4X 3D Graphics with 32MB allocated as video memory. I will be getting a new graphics card AGP as soon as I fix this problem.
By the way, I am making VCD's from VHS tapes of home movies and movies recorded off TV. I am capturing in DV-AVI as this is my only option with the Hollywood Bridge and using Dazzle's Movie Star. The VCD's look great. I also tested with U-lead Video and still the same problem.
Thanks in advance!

[dannee]

Is there no one out there who can help me?????

I guess no one has had this happen to them before or knows what could cause this to happen.

I sure would appreciate some help as I don't want to give up on this. I have already spent many, many hours on learning how to make VCD's as I know many of you have and I know many of you have spent many more hours on this than I have. I am still in the learning stage. Could someone please share their knowledge and their time?

[SimonH]

What are the spec's of each drive ? Do you have any other data on the drive you are having trouble with ? Have you tried defragmenting it ? What IDE channels are each of the drives installed on ? Are they master or slave ?

More info would be handy.

[dannee]

Thank you so much for responding.

The one I am having problem with says secondary channel (is that the same as slave?). The one with OS on it says primary channel. There is nothing on the secondary channel. Tried defragmenting first but there was really nothing to defrag as I already deleted the other movies that were on it. I delete the movie after all done and then go on to the next one. This is the only thing that this drive is used for. Next thing I did was format so I know there is nothing on it.
I thought that the way I have this set up is Drive G-Master and Drive C-Slave. How can I tell if this is what I have? Do I have them on separate channels rather than master & slave?

[teddymines]

The only thing that comes to mind right now is maybe your G drive is not set up as master on your secondary IDE bus. Each IDE bus can support 2 drives, a master and a slave. If you have only one drive on a bus, set it as master.

Another thing to try is to configure your C-drive (boot drive) as master on the primary IDE bus and your G-drive as slave on that same bus.

Are both drives formatted as NTFS? Is your G-drive partitioned at all? Does your device manager show any conflicts? Are the settings for the IDE buses the same?

[dannee]

Both drives are formatted as NTFS

C-drive 40GB was my only drive. When I installed XP I also installed another hard drive 80GB. I set the pins on each drive to say: 80GB - Master and connected it to the cable that the 40GB was connected to and put the 40GB on the second cable after changing the pins to say slave.
I then installed XP on the 80GB & it gave it the name G-drive (which is my boot drive). I set nothing myself in Windows as to which is master and which is slave. The tech told me all I had to do was change the pins and connect to the right cables and said nothing about changing anything in XP. I figured when I installed XP, it would make the settings for me.

C-drive is partitioned with a D(save). It is empty - everything on it was deleted and it shows that it is 100% free space. I don't use this part of the drive as I don't know how to remove the partition. It is still Fat 32.

G-drive is not partitioned.

This is what the Device Manager tells me:
Primary IDE channel Properties:
Advanced Settings:
Current Transfer Mode:
Device 0 - Ultra DMA Mode 4
Device 1 - Ultra DMA Mode 4

Secondary IDE channel Properties:
Advanced Settings:
Current Transfer Mode:
Device 0 - Ultra DMA Mode 3
Device 1 - Multi-Word DMA Mode 2

VIA Bus Master IDE Controller properties:
Advanced Settings:
Location PCI bus 0, Device 20, function 1

This may be more information than what you asked for. If it is not what you asked for then please tell me where to find the info you need. I don't have a clue as to how to set one as Master but can do it if you tell me how.

Also the Device Manager says no conflicts in everything I looked at.

Thank you for responding.

[Lamont Cranston]

When you add a second hard drive to the same IDE bus the same IDE buss controller has to service both drives. When you capture on the C drive where your programs and the os are located there is little or no interruptions from your second drive. However, IMHO when you capture to the second drive your system has to periodically go back to the c drive causing your dropped frames. To minimize my frame drops I added a Promise card and put 2 100G ATA 100 7500 drives, one on each IDE bus on the Promise card. Each drive was plugged at the end of it's own IDE cable (last connector) and the jumper setting was set for a single drive (Western Digital and I think Maxtor also). I capture NTSC 720 x 480 48KHz stereo with AVI_IO and only loose a frame when I have a glitch in the video. You did not mention who made your hard drives but FWIW Western Digital drives do not play well together on the same IDE bus especially if your are looking for performance.

[dannee]

Hello Lamont,

Someone I know asked me if I click on "My Computer", does it show my C-drive listed under my G-drive(master with OS & programs) or is it listed separately along side of G-drive and when I said that it is listed along side of G-drive and not listed under it and he gave no reply as this was wrong and my problem.

One hard drive is Western Digital & the other is Quantum Fireball.

The dropped frames start out immediately - 25 - 50 at a time. I let a 2 hr movie capture for the heck of it to see what it would look like and it was this way (many dropped frames at a time) the whole way through, however near the end it looked almost normal. And I am not talking dropped frames here and there but MAJOR dropped frames constantly.
I know it is not the tape or the Bridge because like I said it only happens when capturing to the slave drive and works perfectly when captured to the master drive with ZERO dropped frames.

Is getting the Promise Card my only option or do I have something connected wrong? I know many people on this forum say they have 2 drives with one solely for capturing and none mentioned anything about having to buy something extra for it to work. I'm thinking that it is just not set up right.

Any other suggestions? And where can I get this Promise Card and how much can I expect to pay for it?

[dannee]

Teddymines,

You said to try to configure my C-drive, boot drive,( I think you meant G-drive as this is the one with OS & programs on it) as master on the primary IDE bus and my other drive as slave on that same bus. I think this is what my problem is because it is not set up this way as I thought it was already set up this way.

Any way, how do I do this?

[teddymines]

You may want to try this:
IDE0: Master: boot drive (OS)
IDE1: Master: your G-Drive
IDE1: Slave: CDROM

The problem may have been the way you installed XP. You should have backed up, partitioned each drive 100% as NTFS, then installed XP on your smaller drive (IDE0 master above). If you can't solve your problem, I'd try this option.

[edit]
Sorry, I just missed your last post, which I will reply to here. I'm assuming what you are calling your G-Drive is what the rest of the world refers to as your boot drive. Everyone else calls it C drive. I may have misspoken, try setting them up as mentioned above in this post. Having drives on separate IDE buses may solve your problems. Here's the general steps:
1. Disconnect all hard drives.
2. Pull your G-Drive (boot).
3. Set the jumpers on your G-Drive to make it Master (see back or top of drive for jumper settings).
4. Set the jumpers on your other drive to make it Master.
5. Find the IDE cable that is attached to your Primary IDE Bus, or it might be labeled IDE0. Connect this to your G-Drive.
6. Connect the other (secondary) IDE cable to your other drive.
7. If you have an IDE cdrom, set it to slave and attach it to the secondary IDE cable.
8. Turn on computer and enter BIOS. Verify autodetect settings, exit and continue boot normally.

Let me know if this is not clear.

[dannee]

Teddymines,

I would rather have the smaller drive (C) as the boot drive and the larger drive be the one that I use to capture movies on. This is how I planned to do it originally but the tech where I bought the new larger drive from said it would be better for me to do it the way I did it. Since I know very little, as you can tell, (I'm a nurse) I went with his suggestion.

Can I still connect the smaller drive to the IDE cable that is attached to the primary IDE bus & install XP on it & would it still be given the letter "C" and attach the larger drive to the secondary cable and use it solely to capture movies on to it and would XP still assign it as "G"?

And would I still be able to copy what programs I want from the larger drive on to the smaller drive and then reformat the larger drive?

Where the confusion comes in on the lettering of the drives is that it used to be that when you added another drive it would assign the boot drive "C" and adjust the others drives accordingly but now XP assigns the new drive the next available letter even if it is going to be your boot drive. But if you just refer to it as my boot drive, I will know what you are talking about.

I want to do what is best, so if you will tell me how to make my smaller drive my boot drive I would surely appreciate it. I want to do it right this time. If I could just copy my info on to the smaller drive after XP is installed it would be better for me but if I can't and have to back everything up onto discs then that is what I will do.

Thanks so much for your time. It is greatly appreciated.

Also will I be able to remove the partition from the smaller drive and if not will I still be able to change it to NTFS? If the answer is "no" it is OK because it is only about 2.7GB.

[patrickm]

under computer/properties/hardware/device manager, are your disks listed as SCSI? I know they're not, but sometimes when you install those VIA 4-in-1 drivers it screws up the IDE bus master part. if your disks say SCSI, uninstall the VIA 4-in-1 IDE drivers and just use the MS ones.

if D: is blank, you could probably format it right now, either NTFS or FAT32.
not using 37Gb is kind of a waste....

also, it really doesn't matter what letters your drives are, or which one is on IDE0 or IDE1. the two channels are multi-tasking, so as long as both hard drives are set up as Masters you should be fine.

if you want to move your OS, you'll have to reinstall it, and probably most of your programs. (some file paths are saved in a relative way in the registry, such as %WINBOOT%\user, but others are still going to say G:\user or something, so they may not work 100%).

[dannee]

Patrickm,

I will probably just go ahead and re-install XP on the smaller drive. I have never backed up anything on a disk to later put back on the computer. Can I use Easy CD Creator - Data CD copier to copy files and then how do I put them back in the folders? It will be things such as photos, documents, and a couple of programs downloaded that I can't get today.
Lets say I want to copy everything in "My Documents". Do I just select that folder and everything in that folder will be copied. Then after installing XP, how do I put this stuff back on the computer?
I shouldn't have any problems re-installing my programs from the original discs should I? What I mean is, they can't be installed just once can they?
So you are saying that I should connect smaller drive (it will be the one I will install OS on) to primary IDE cable and set jumpers to Master and then connect larger drive to secondary cable and also set jumpers to Master and then place XP CD in CD ROM drive and then it will install XP on my smaller drive? Is there anything I need to set in Windows after doing this?
Last thing: I tried to format Drive D and change to NTFS but it wouldn't let me format and said to quit any disk utility or other programs that are using this drive. I can't find anything that is using drive D. I thought it was blank but there is System Volume Info. on it - 0.02GB. Is this from System Restore?
Anything else I need to do?

[dannee]

I quit System Restore on Drive D and then was able to Format to NTFS.

Is there any way to remove the partition? Like I said it is only 2.73GB but that is still space that I may need one day.

Thank you very much everyone who is responding.

[SimonH]

A few posts ago, you posted the contents of your IDE channels in Device manager, your secondary slave device is running at DMA Multi-word Mode 2 which has a transfer rate of 16.6MB/sec. the rest of your drives are running at at least twice this. If the drive you're having trouble with is the slave on the secondary IDE channel, then I'll bet this is your problem. Maybe you could try different possible IDE configurations, remove CD-ROM/DVD-ROM's until device manager says all your drive are at UDMA 3.

[dannee]

Simon H,

What do you mean remove CD-ROM/DVD-ROM's until Device Manager says all drives are at UDMA3. Do you mean physically remove them by disconnecting them from inside the tower.

It seems I remember changing one of the channels to read Multi-word 2 after reading somewhere on this forum that someone was having a problem with dropped frames and this fixed their problem. I will go over my notes in a couple of hours (I need to run into town) to see if I can find how I changed this to this setting. Again I think I remember changing this from UDMA3 to Multi-Word 2. If you remember I said everything was working fairly well for a while and then all of a sudden it messed up. Sometimes I fall asleep working on the computer and when I wake up I realize I changed something but don't always know how I changed it. I was having problems with dropped frames but only occasionally and I remember trying different things to fine tune.

If you read this post in the next couple of hours then please clarify what you mean about removing drives. Then I'll try to find out how I changed this setting and try to change it back. If I can't change it back then I'll try doing what you said.

Also no one has been able to tell me if I can remove the small partition from the smaller drive. Do you know how I can do this?

Thanks

[SimonH]

I did mean physically remove the cables, and try them in different configurations (on different IDE channels, different Slaves and Masters etc) but if you changed the DMA mode yourself, then there's no point. I recommend that you change it back to DMA mode 3 anyway. I don't think you can do this in Device Manager, in must be in your BIOS. If you've already had it at UDMA 3 previously, then it probably won't help your problem, but that's what I think it should it be set at until you're problem is solved. I'll have another think . . . . .

[SimonH]

just read the last paragraph of your post . . . .
Right-Click on My Computer and click Manage.
In the left-hand pane, under Storage, click Disk management.
All you drive and volume (partition) information will be shown in the right-hand pane. On the top are your volumes, below are you physical drives, with the volumes they contain. Find the volume you wish to delete, right-click on it and select Delete Partition. As long as the partition is not the boot partition, it will let you do this. Be careful here, you could easily lose a lot data !!

Just so this is clear in my head . . . .your drive configuration. Do you have 2 HDD's and 2 CD/DVD-ROM's? Are the CD-ROM's on the same cable (IDE channel), and the HDD's on the other, same, cable ? My point is, this is how it should be. A CD/DVD-ROM only runs at UDMA33, whereas HDD's are capable of UDMA100 (or 133 now, but we won't go into that!). If you have a UDMA 33 device on the same IDE Channel as a UDMA 100, it will anly run at the speed of the slower device, apparently.

[dannee]

Greetings SimonH,

I just got home and read your message. I went inside the computer to see just exactly what I did when I installed the new hard drive. After listening to ya'll and how I should have hooked everything up & then looking at how I did set it up, it is amazing that I was even able to capture any movies. One that I did manage to capture was the "Wizard of Oz" & it is now on a VCD and it looks GREAT!!!!! The Wizard must have helped me. I wonder if Harry Potter could have done the same thing.

What I have is this:

Large white cable, labeled "HDD 0" is connected to Boot drive (0)
Smaller white plastic connector (P5) hooked also to boot drive, with wires going to white connector (P3) hooked to my CD/DVD ROM and the other wires going to white connector (P6) which is hooked to Hard drive (1).

Next large white cable (coming off of the cable above) is labeled "HDD 1" & it is connected to my smaller hard drive. The white plastic connector (P6) has some of it's wires going to (P7) connected to Floppy drive A & the other wires going to (P5) connected to my Boot drive.

Connector (P3) has wires going to (P2) & is connected to my CD Writer & the other end (P5) to my boot drive.

I can assure you that nursing is much less complicated than this is. But then again I used to work in surgery and it is about body mechanics & this is computer mechanics. In either case, if everything is not hooked up right then there is going to be a problem. Just think what would happen if the Surgeon hooked the eye nerves to the ears, or the finger nerves to
the nose!!!

Please just tell me what goes where & I'll try again but this time I am confident I will get it right.

Thank you so much,
dannee

[SimonH]

OK Here we go.
The small "white plastic" connectors (with 4 pins) are power cables. They can go in any configuration, it doesn't matter, as long as they fit. The power connector for the floppy drive should be the only one that is different from the rest. So don't worry about those, as long as each drive has one connected.
The cables we are interested in are the one's with the wide 80 pin connectors on. Usually these look like ribbons (hence they are sometimes called "ribbon cables") and have a kind of ribbed effect, although some of the newer don't (just to make things more confusing), but should have the same (2 inch-ish) wide connector on the end.
If you follow these cables back to your motherboard, they should be plugged into 2 ports labelled IDE0 and IDE1. IDE0 is your primary IDE channel, IDE1 is your second. As someone has already stated, each channel can take 2 IDE devices (ie. 2 hdd's, CD-ROM's, DVD-ROM's or a combination), in a MASTER-SLAVE configuration. With your devices, I would set it up as follow's. Decide which Hard Disk is your boot, and set the jumper on the back of the drive to "MASTER". Set your other Hard Disk to "SLAVE" (using the jumper again). Plug one of your IDE cables (the ribbon cables) into IDE0 and connect it to your 2 hard drives - I don't think it matters which order, but I usually have the SLAVE at the end of the cable. Don't forget your power cables - like I said these can go in any order, as long as they reach, fit, and each drive has one plugged in.
Now your CD drives. Set your CD Writer as MASTER (use the jumper) and your DVD-ROM as slave. Connect the other IDE cable to IDE1, then to both your drives (again don't forget the power cables too). If you have a small thin cable going from one of these drives you can probably leave it as it is, it just connects to your sound card so you can play music CD's through your Sound Card.
As a note, if your IDE cables have a Blue Connector on one end, this end should go into the motherboard. Also, if the "ribs" on one of the cables seem smaller (finer) than on the other cable, this cable is for UDMA100 (AKA ATA100) and should be used for the hard disk drives.
That's it, that is how I would set them up. I can't promise this will help with your problem, but it's worth a shot. Sorry if I've sounded a little patronising in this post, but sometimes it's best to go back to basics to avoid any confusion.
Good luck, and let me know if it helps.

Simon

[dannee]

Greetings Simon,

I looked at my setup and it is setup EXACTLY the way you say it should be. I had a friend look at it and he agrees it is exactly as you say. So I guess I am back to square one.

There has got to be some reason that I can capture to my master drive without any dropped frames but then when I capture to my slave drive, I have blocks of dropped frames frequently.

Will how my virtual memory is setup have an impact on this problem?
In system's properties it says the follwing:

Master drive - system managed size
Slave drive - system managed size
Partition of slave - no paging file

Total page filing size for all drives:
Minimum allowed - 2MB
Recommended - 910MB
Currently allotted - 1822MB

If you or no one else reading this post can think of some reason for my problem then I guess I'll just have to go with what I've got now. I am capturing to my master drive 80GB, then I go to TMPGE and then any other files from there go on to my slave drive 40GB. And this is OK but it means that once I am all through with a movie and I delete all the files, I'll end up having to defrag my master drive each time before starting another movie. If it was working properly then I wouldn't have to defrag at all since all of the movie files would be on the slave drive and I would be deleting them - no reason to defrag.

One other thing I should mention: When I place my mouse over a file that was captured to that drive, it takes a long time for the info on that file to come up on the screen. But if it is a file that was just transfered to that drive then the info comes up immediately. Is this normal? Also if I right click on the same file (captured file) & select properties, again it takes a long time for the info to show up on the screen - approx. 2-4 min.

Again, thank you & others for all of your time. It is greatly appreciated.

[Executioner]

I don't think it matters which order, but I usually have the SLAVE at the end of the cable

Any drive using the new ATA66 or higher standard, the end connector, usually black in color, is the master, while the middle connector, usually gray, is the slave. The blue end plugs into your motherboard.

Just wanted to correct that from SimmonH.

Without reading this entire thread, my educated guess would be you have 2 different HD's on the same IDE channel, and there must be some minor imcompatibilities between them which would cause your dropped frames. A good test would be to have your boot drive as a master on IDE#1, and your other drive on IDE#2 as a master with no other devices attached. Then try capturing to see what happens. This will quickly determine if there is a problem between the drives when connected together.

[Cooly-O]

There has got to be some reason that I can capture to my master drive without any dropped frames but then when I capture to my slave drive, I have blocks of dropped frames frequently.

How To Tune your System

[SimonH]

I have to agree with Executioner, it must be some problem with drive you are having trouble with, or a combination of the two. Try what he says (An HDD on each channel), and maybe you could try using the other drive as your boot (ie. install XP on your current capture - the one you wish to use as capture, and capture from your current boot drive), just to see if it makes a difference. Otherwise, I don't know what to suggest. If the thread continues, I'll try to help in any way I can.

[SimonH]

@Executioner

Any drive using the new ATA66 or higher standard, the end connector, usually black in color, is the master, while the middle connector, usually gray, is the slave. The blue end plugs into your motherboard.

My bad, I actually do have the slave in the middle, and the master on the end - don't know what came over me there.

Doh !

[patrickm]

a few points...

1- IDE0 + IDE1 is a multitasking situation. MASTER + SLAVE is not. there's only one cable for the data lines, it's that simple. you get better performance putting one drive as master (or slave) on IDE0 and the other on IDE1. it really doesn't matter where you put the cd-rom for capturing, but if you use it a lot, put it on the opposite end of the drive you use it with. e.g., if you copy a CD to drive C often, the CDROM should be on the cable with drive G, so that data can be moved efficiently from one device to the other without having to go through the read-buffer-write cycle on one cable.

2- masters go at the end of the cable because this produces less electrical interference problems (impedance mismatch, reflections, etc). from a performance standpoint, you don't want an unterminated end to any cable as a general rule, though in most practical situations it's acceptable

3- the ATA66/100/133 (UDMA mode 4/5/6) all but require 80-WIRE CABLES. the extra 40 wires are 40 more grounds, so that the cables can refresh data faster. so if you're using ATA66/100 drives use the right cables.

4- the system drive should not be a problem if it is ATA33 or higher. ATA66, 100, (or maybe even 33) will work fine for MPEG recording, since the sustained data rate you're sending to the drive really isn't that big.


suggestion for your situation-
IDE0-M system (OS) drive
IDE0-S CD-ROM
IDE1-M capture drive
IDE1-S (empty)

(1 and 0 are actually interchangeable, just put the system w/ CD and capture drive on its own)

[dannee]

Thank you all : Simon, Patrick, Executioner, Cooly-o, & Teddymines

It has taken me this long to get my computer back to working again.

I did exactly what ya'll said to do and tried different configurations ...................................HOWEVER,

No matter what I did, my computer would not start back up. It kept saying it could not find my operating system on any disks. Again, I tried every configuration ya'll suggested such as both master on same cable, master-slave on same cable, both master on different cable, but every time I tried to start up the words kept coming on the screen - "operating system could not be found on any disk" (or maybe it said drive) I don't even remember now, it was such a stressful experience. It may take me days to recover from this.

Even after putting things back just the way I had them to start with, I still got the same message. So I began to panic but then realized that it really was not all that bad since I was contemplating putting the OS on the smaller drive anyway so I decided now was the time to do it ------------------- Did I really have any other choice!

So I switched drives again and tried to install XP on smaller drive, I removed the partition (Sav-D), formatted, watched the screen as the files were being copied, then it said it needed to shut down to complete the installation, it shut down, then came back up and said: "press any key to boot from CD", so I pressed enter and nothing happened. I waited and waited and still nothing happened no matter how many times I pressed any key. So I called the store where I bought the hard drive & OS from and the manager said to press the "NUM Lock" so I did and nothing happened. When I told him nothing happened, his reply was "Not good".

Then he suggested that maybe the computer was confused because I had XP on both drives now. So he suggested I put the drive with the original XP on it that I knew worked back in as Master\Single and not hook up the smaller drive so I did, said a prayer, & "Presto" here I am.

So right now I am going to take a couple of days to re-think everything that has happened and try to get back some of the energy that was just zapped from me. Man, what an experience! This was more stressful than a patient coding and helping to bring him back to life.

One thing the computer store manager suggested was that maybe I have 2 different hard drive speeds. I know my 80GB is 7200 but I don't know what the older one is. I don't have any documentation on it. If the one I am having problems with is a slower speed could this be the cause of the dropped frames? I have had my computer now for a year.

Again thank you all. I'm going to read Cooley-o's info and then think about what I want to do next. I'll return in a couple of days.

dannee

[patrickm]

No matter what I did, my computer would not start back up. It kept saying it could not find my operating system on any disks. Again, I tried every configuration ya'll suggested such as both master on same cable, master-slave on same cable, both master on different cable, but every time I tried to start up the words kept coming on the screen - "operating system could not be found on any disk" (or maybe it said drive) I don't even remember now, it was such a stressful experience. It may take me days to recover from this.

make sure your BIOS (the 'hit F1 or DEL for setup' thing, points to the right hard disk to boot from (the one that was "c" when you installed xp), or else the cd-rom when you boot from it)

So I switched drives again and tried to install XP on smaller drive, I removed the partition (Sav-D), formatted, watched the screen as the files were being copied, then it said it needed to shut down to complete the installation, it shut down, then came back up and said: "press any key to boot from CD", so I pressed enter and nothing happened. I waited and waited and still nothing happened no matter how many times I pressed any key. So I called the store where I bought the hard drive & OS from and the manager said to press the "NUM Lock" so I did and nothing happened. When I told him nothing happened, his reply was "Not good".

well, there's maybe 4 keys on the keyboard that are not guaranteed to boot the drive when it asks you to press a key, and numlock is one of them. just push space bar, enter, or a letter key. anyway, go to the bios and bump your hard drive up to the 1st boot device after it installs and asks for a restart. and if that doesn't work, just reinstall over it again, no big loss but 40 minutes.

Then he suggested that maybe the computer was confused because I had XP on both drives now. So he suggested I put the drive with the original XP on it that I knew worked back in as Master\Single and not hook up the smaller drive so I did, said a prayer, & "Presto" here I am.

wrong. you can put an NT/2k/xp operating system on as many drives as you want. you can put it on multiple partitions of the same disk if you want. that's not the cause. it just can't find the 'boot loader', which is always installed on the boot drive _at the time the OS is installed_. also, after you install and it says you need to reboot, you dont' want to boot from the CD-ROM anymore. again, make sure your boot device order in the BIOS is set right.

One thing the computer store manager suggested was that maybe I have 2 different hard drive speeds. I know my 80GB is 7200 but I don't know what the older one is. I don't have any documentation on it. If the one I am having problems with is a slower speed could this be the cause of the dropped frames? I have had my computer now for a year.

tell him i've got some prime real estate on the antarctic coast i can sell him. you can have an IDE controller and a Promise controller and literally run 8 different drives of 8 different sizes and 8 different speeds if you want. that's possibly the dumbest thing i've heard yet. also, when capturing, drive RPM (the 7200 or 5400 is almost entirely inconsequential, as you're writing one big continuous file- therefore there's essentially no seeking operations needed. the sustained read/write rate is what matters, and for most ATA66/100 5400 RPM drives it's fine, and i think almost every recent 40G+ disk is at least a 66)


so the overall lesson:
-don't listen to that idiot for tech support
-put your drives in the way you want them BEFORE installing NT/2K/XP, and don't move that C drive afterwards
-small drive master (boot) w/ CDROM as slave on one cable/channel
-big drive master on other cable/channel
-make sure BIOS is looking to boot an OS from the right location (the original C drive, which you may have formatted now)

[dannee]

Pratrick,

1. Thank you for the info. I understand everything you said. The only thing that confuses me is that when the screen kept saying the OS couldn't be found was way before I tried to install the OS on the smaller (non-boot) drive. Starting with the very first change in configurations, I got that message. I couldn't get back in to see if it would work, even after putting everything back the way it was to start with, I still got the message that the OS couldn't be found. Why was that?

2. The next thing is - I know what BIOS is, how it works, and when to get into BIOS, but I do not know the key (or keys) to press to get in there. I have never tried to get there using my computer I think because I know you can really mess things up if you are not careful. I have avoided it for that reason but I am feeling more confident now so would you please tell me the key to press?

3. And one last thing - I would like to merge video clips in TMPGEnc but don't know if it is better to merge after each has been encoded and the audio & video separated & re-joined again or before this process. I am assuming that if it is done after each clip is all done in TMPGE then I would have to go through the De-multiplex & Multiplex step again. These are clips that were .AVI & converted to .mpg in TMPGE. Since the capture program I use separates the video into 4GB clips I will be following this process in TMPGE for all of my movies. I have already done a couple of movies by taking the clips and after all done in TMPGE, I joined them using Merge in TMPGE and ran through the DE-mux & Mux stage again and the movie looks great. But if I can merge earlier, it would save me a step.

Thank you for all your help.

dannee

[robertzanzerkia]

Hi,
Thank you for posting this.
Now using my Visiontek AGP card I can capture to DVD quality without any frame drops. Wow!!
Perheps the title of the guide should be changed to "How to avoid frame drops"

Robert

There has got to be some reason that I can capture to my master drive without any dropped frames but then when I capture to my slave drive, I have blocks of dropped frames frequently.

How To Tune your System