what is a Primary IDE channel and a Secondary IDE channel?

[Beautiful Alone]

It can be found under Device Manager.
just wanna know what it is.

[sterno]

IDE is the interface most PCs use for controlling hard disks and CD drives (and other stuff, but those are the main ones). IDE only allows two devices on each chain/channel (nobody will ever need more than two drives, just like nobody will ever need more than 640k). Some years ago manufacturers realized that was pretty foolish and started putting two IDE chains on motherboards, allowing 4 drives. Each channel shows up as its own controller, so you have the primary and secondary chains listed in your device manager.

[El Torro]

right. If you open your computer, you will see large, white cables, these are the IDE cables when you connect the HD or CD or DVD on. There are 2 connections on the cable. The first (in the half of the cable) connector is if you want the device to be the MASTER(supperior to the slave) and the second it to attack the SLAVE to.

[Beautiful Alone]

so..which is primary and which is secodnary?

[sterno]

Look in your motherboard manual or on the board itself and see which connection is marked "1" and which is marked "2" (they might also be marked "0" and "1", but I haven't seen that as often).

[Nelson37]

Whichever connection is so marked on the motherboard, IDE0 or primary and IDE1 or secondary. On occassion markings will be IDE1 and IDE2. Typically your boot drive will be the master on the primary channel, although many BIOS allow to boot from secondary.

Cable position is unimportant unless cable-select type cable is used, which is fairly rare. Otherwise Master/Slave is set by jumpers on the drive.

[Beautiful Alone]

ok, thanks. I have a question regarding my dvd-rom. Ever since i install this new DVD-rom in my computer, I've been having alot of problems booting my computer, sometimes the computer boots and sometimes it doesn't.

The dvd-rom is plug on the secondary slot i believe, it's shareing the same IDE cable as my CD-RW. I set my dvd-rom jumper "Master" and my CD-rw "Slave". Hmmmm...why is my computer not booting?

[Nelson37]

You may be overloading your power supply, unplug DVD and reboot several times.

Or it could be a bad drive.

[Helmut]

Check the settings in the bios about boot sequence. You should have it to boot from the harddrive first if you arent planing any OS installations.

[Beautiful Alone]

would it be a problem if the DVD-rom doesn't support XP?

[Trimegisto]

Some pieces of advice:

1- Let your BIOS in Auto mode for detecting those two drives.
2- Change the settings: CD-RW to Master and the DVD to slave

I had that same problem, I tried to install the dvd as master but cd-rw couldn't burn anything as a slave...

So, check your jumper settings, on the back of both drives, don't use cable select, force dvd as slave and cd-rw as master.

Also check your cable connections. The IDE cables are not simmetrical in lenght.

The long end goes to the motherboard and the end with the two connectors goes to the drives.

the other end connect the slave drive, of course in the midle will be the master.

Got it?

[Beautiful Alone]

so..did you get your DVD-rom to work now?

[El Torro]

yes, checck your BiOS setts, but carefull with that, when you change ANYTHING in there, be sure to write down WHAT you do, cuz BIOS setts are a pain in the a** if they're not good. i screwed up my first computer cuz i changed something in the bios( it couldn'd find any HD's or disk drives )

[Nelson37]

Beautiful Alone please clarify "does not boot". Do you mean it does not give any indication of being powered on at all, lights up but shows nothing on screen, shows XP logo but shuts down or reboots or freezes?

Master/slave settings may cause drive not to function but won't usually prevent PC from booting up, that's why I suggested power. Also totally disconnect that ide channel and power to all drives on it and boot multiple times to see if there is some other, unrelated problem that just happened to occur about the same time you installed the DVD.

XP seems to be unusually sensitive to AGP video card, reseating video card (lock it down if you have that feature) often resolves XP boot anomalies. Common sympton is booting into Safe Mode but freezing on Normal.

[Trimegisto]

Yes, I got everything working fine now. One other thing: I sugested the auto function in BIOS cause some drives are sensitive to UDMA settings.

And XP is also sensitive to that. Make sure you have installed all the latest drives for your motherboard, IDE controlers, etc but don't mess with the the PIO/DMA setting of XP unless you know what you are doing.

I tried multiple combinations just to realize that the auto (and default)functions worked fine.

Hope that helps...

[Beautiful Alone]

ahh..have tried almost everything, it still can't seem to boot, the screen is just black, can't see anything. I did change the BIOs auto detect my CD-rw and DVD-rom drive, it still didn't work. And i've never did connect the jumper the same. I alwasy connect one as Master and the other slave.

Anyways, the dvd-rom didn't came with a floppy disk for the drivers.

[Trimegisto]

In your place I would do the following:

-save everything from hd. good idea is to have two partitions on hd. like this you can always reformat c: and leave everything intact on d:

-make sure your bios recognizes both cd drives and the hd correctly

-I have my hd alone on the primary channel and the others on the secundary. works fine.

-install XP with from a boot CD placed inside your dvd-rom.

-don't try to recover anything. sometimes it's just a waste of time... do a quick NTFS format. Remember, if you can, split your HD into two logical drives, i.e. two partitions.

- XP will detect everything, no need for any drivers for the cd drives

-make sure you have all the latest drivers for all your hardware and install it.

This is a bit anoying but should solve all your problems

If not, get back here.

[Beautiful Alone]

well, thanks alot for your help. I'm getting a New one. What a waste of money The DVD-rom doesn't seem to boot is probably XP is not on the list. Hmm..any suggestion on what brand to buy and what to avoid?

[Trimegisto]

I got myself a Samsung SD-616 last week. Rips fast and reads both DVD or plain cd-r and cd-rw flawlessly under XP. And it was cheap!

[Beautiful Alone]

What is the speed when ripping DVDs?

[Trimegisto]

I've just ripped a 1h55m movie in 11m:35s

The speed started at 3.3x but then raised until 5.9x

Not bad for a 75€ drive is it?

[Nelson37]

Beautiful Alone - If the PC does not boot, nothing on screen at all, no white lettering before logo, then either

1. The DVD has a dead short, or

2. The IDE cable is on backwards. The red stripe goes next
to the power or pin 1 as indicated.

It cannot be an issue of XP supporting the drive cause XP has not loaded yet.