MANY dropped frames on second drive and zero on primary

[SimonH]

You should really start a new thread for this, but here I go;

1. I wouldn't like to speculate, but it probably does have something do with BIOS setiings - oops - I speculated.

2. Usually, when you computer first boots, and detects IDE devices and checks the RAM etc (POST screen), it will tell you which key to press. If it just shows a pretty picture, try pressing [ESC] to see what's behind it. In any case, it's usually [DEL] or [F1]. If neither works, try all of the [F?] keys, one by one.

3. I don't think there would be any advantage, but you could join the AVIS Clips in VirtualDUB, by opening your first clip, then File->Append AVI Segment, and add you other clips one by one. Then select Video->Direct Stream Copy, Audio->Direct Stream Copy, then File->Save As AVI, and give the clip a new name. It will be one large clip once VDub has finished copying. Although, with 4gb Clips, it will take quite a while. Like I said, I don't think there's any advantage to this, and you're probably better off doing it the way you are already. Although, why the De-Mux/Re-Mux after Merging ? Presumably you've already muxed all the smaller clips !?!?

[dannee]

Thanks SimonH,

What a good idea!!! See new thread titled "Changing BIOS settings to avoid dropped frames?"

Give me several minutes to set it up.

dannee

[dannee]

Hi SimonH,

Well I am back! We weatherd the storm without any problems. We got a lot of rain but sure needed it. Looks like we could be getting another one in a few days that is now near Cuba.

Now, for the problem at hand!! I think I am ready to tackle the problem of the dropped frames on the second hard drive. As of yet I have not put the second drive back in because of the problem I experienced of not being able to bring up my system because it said OS could not be found on any disk. That was really scary!!

Before I add the second drive, can you or anyone tell me why my OS could not be found? This has nothing to do with installing XP on the second drive. All of this happened BEFORE I tried to do that. If you remember, I said I changed the jumpers so that both drives were master on the same cable. When I tried to see if this would work, I could not get into Windows because it said, "OS could not be found on any disk".
So I changed it back to the way I had it to start with (OS on master drive and other as slave drive on same cable) but again I got the same message. Can I expect this same thing to happen again when I add the second drive. Right now I think it has OS on it but not sure. I'm going to take Primary out and leave it out and put second drive in, format it to make sure it is clean, take it out, put primary back in, bring the system up, shut down, add clean second drive as slave on same cable (the way I had it originally". Does this sound OK? I don't want to proceed until I hear that this is OK.

dannee

PS: I decided to leave OS on larger drive since it is working great and no dropped frames . My first goal is to get it back the way it was. Then I will set a new goal.

[SimonH]

I changed the jumpers so that both drives were master on the same cable

There's your problem. You can't set both drives as master or both as slave when they're on the same cable. one has to be one, the other has to be the other, regardless of drive type. Because both were set as Master, neither would be detected (think of them as cancelling each other out). BTW, Master takes priority over Slave, so I would set your boot drive (the one with Windows Xp installed on it) to master, and the other to slave.

The rest of your plan sounds fine.

[patrickm]

he's right, your problem was having two masters on the same cable. you can only have two masters on separate cables. and they don't always 'cancel out', sometimes one takes priority and forces itself to be recognized, it just isn't your system disk.

i still think the best configuratiion is
CABLE 1
- MASTER - 40G w/ XP (maybe a 10/30 partition split)
CABLE 2
- MASTER - 80G capture drive

SLAVE CD-ROM can be on either one, it'll load windows faster from CABLE 2, but if you copy or burn CDs to the 80G drive often, move it to CABLE 1

you should never have a problem adding disks to a NT/2K/XP system. some drive letters may change (you can change any of them back except for the drive you boot from and originally install to)

[dannee]

Thanks Simon & Patrick,

I finally did get my system back working just the way I had it before.
Unfortunately I still have the problem of many dropped frames on slave drive. I was kind of hoping that it would just miraculously fix itself while being changed around but no such luck. I do believe miracles still happen.

I'm still trying to decide whether or not to just leave it alone or change it to master on different cables. I do understand fully what ya'll have explained to me on how it works and why and I do appreciate the time you and others have spent helping me out. I did manage to remove the partition from the one drive giving me more space to work with.

I have one last question though. Ya'll mentioned that the cables are different, finer ribs vs coarser ribs. I am assuming that since you are saying that I can put the drives on different cables that this means that it simply doesn't matter that the cables are different.

Since some have said that they have theirs set up Master/Slave on same cable and theirs works, could it be like someone said, the two drives are just not compatible?

dannee

[gll99]

I will just jump in here after reading all this stuff very quickly. The finer 80 ribs ribbon is what you need for your hard drives. It is used for ata100 and ata133 ide bus speed. If you use the older 40 pin ribbon you won't get the maximum speed out of your modern hard drives.

I don't know what you finally decided as your current setup but if you put the 2 hd on the same controller IDE0 then make sure that you use the ATA100/133 cable on that controller. If You split the drives between controllers (IDE0 and IDE1) the make sure that both cables are the finer 80 pin ribbons. Your CDrom and CD writer will also work on this type of cable so it wont be a problem. To save confusion put the older cable away and buy another ATA 100/133 since its backwards compatible anyway.

As a personal preference, I keep my 2 hard drives on separate controllers with my boot drive on IDE0. Old habits die hard.

I didn't look for your computer specs but whether you achieve max speed (ie 100 or 133) on your hd depends on the type of controllers installed on your motherboard, your bios settings and using the proper cables.