CD Writer under Win 2k

[PortVale]

I have installed a Plextor Plexwriter 16/10/40A on a machine running Win2K. The PC already has a standard CD -ROM drive which I connected as a slave to the HDD and the writer as master on the secondary IDE channel. The original HDD ribbon cable connections are specifically labeled system, slave and master, something I hadn't seen before. I couldn't use this cable as the distance between the slave and master connections are too short so I used a generic ribbon cable. Everything booted up fine, but I have lost the DMA capability of the HDD, it will only run in PIO mode, which is very slow. I have disconnected the CD-ROM and now have the HDD a master on IDE 1 and the CD writer as master on IDE 2. I would still like to use the standard CD ROM drive. IS the generic cable at fault or would I have not been able to get HDD DMA on any cable?
I have also posted this under the Windows 2000 forum.

 

[ejsmith2]

If you are running your hard drive on that same 'generic' cable, and it's a 40-conductor cable, then yep. It's the reason you aren't getting udma. You'll need an 80-conductor cable for udma. Though you should be able to get dma mode2, which is around 33Mb/sec.
If you've got 4 ide channels, then it's just a matter of ordering 2 more ultra cables off the internet at $6.50 a cable. I put my writer on channel 3, which is the promise controller. I have to load the controller drivers in win98/win2k before I can use the writer. If you have only 2 channels, you've got a choice to make. I'd hook the reader & writer on the secondary channel, but that means you'll lose the capability to copy cd-cd. You can make an image and copy though, and it will make a somewhat noticible difference when you move/copy files from the reader.
One day everything will be fiber-optic, and there won't be a need for 600 different cables in your computer. It's staggering to think of how much money all the accessory businesses/companies will lose due to a single standard. Probably won't happen in my lifetime though =)

 

[wapaaga]

you can still copy cd if there are both on thesame ide cable but you run a grater chance of getting errors on the cd

i do very thing of an image any ways becuase your'e supose to have a drive that can read twice as fast as you can write
and my dvd player will only pull all the information of a disk at 12x and my cd burner is 8x so you can my problem
whereas my hardrivve is rated up to 72x with nero which i figure is more then fsast enogh