Could a DVD ROM cause problems with a DVD Writer on the same IDE cable? Until a few minutes ago I wouldn't have thought so, but it appears I may be wrong.

I've had problems on and off with my DVD ROM- it had a hard time reading CDs, and recently it's had trouble reading DVDs. Sometimes it would read 3-4 in a row with no problem, other times I'd have to remove and reinsert the same one 2-3 reads before it would read it.

A week or so ago I started having problems with burning. I kept getting an error code with something about a Sense Error. I tried everything from a clean install of my hard drive to getting 2 new DVD burners. Nothing worked. Today moved my burner, DVD ROM and one hard drive to another computer. The first DVD I burned gave me the same error I've been getting for days now. I was ready to throw both computer out the window and tried to figure out what could cause the same error in both systems. I knew it wasn't a bad burner and I'm pretty sure it's not a problem with the hard drive. That left the DVD ROM as the only common factor.

So I unplugged the DVD ROM and tried to burn a disk- it worked. I won't be convinced until I burn at least 8-9 without errors, but I can't think of anything else that could be causing the problem so I'm hopeful.

So, is it possible for a slave device to cause problems like that for the master device on the same IDE?

Even stranger- part of that time the DVD ROM was on a different IDE- the writer was the master connected to the motherboard, the ROM was the master connected to a controller card- but there problems were still there.