Which IDE cable

[shybull]

I've read not to put a CDRW on the same IDE cable as the hard drive. I've also read not to put a CD and CDRW together on the same IDE cable. Which is it? Or does it really matter?

 

[btvillarin]

Okay, I'm changing this so you know that this is a link to a previous thread about this same question...
<A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=30911#30911" target="_new">Click to read previous THGC thread</A>

-Bryan

<font color=red><A HREF="http://www.btvillarin.com" target="_new">btvillarin.com</A> - My Windows XP-based Website</font color=red><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by btvillarin on 05/24/02 10:34 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[4Ryan6]

Set the jumpers on the RW drive as the master on the secondary IDE and the CD Rom as the slave on the same cable, the Master drive always is at the end of the cable. If its possible to run your hardrive on the Primary IDE as master by itself you'll get better performance from the hardrive. But you can run a slave on the primary IDE if you have to, but make sure the hardrive is on the primary IDE.

 

[WingDing]

The best solution is to have each on a seperate IDE channel. This would require either having 4 IDE slots on your motherboard (usually with a RAID option), or buying a seperate RAID card and attaching the extra drives to this. They can then all be set as Master.



Sex is great but its no substitite for the real thing.....

 

[r2k]

It's best to have data-hungry devices as Master. Your primary hard disk should always be the Primary Master. Your CD-R/W drive should also be set to Secondary Master. Now you can slave another hard disk (if you have any) to the primary hard disk and slave your CD reader to your CD-R/W drive. IMHO if you're not doing too many disk or CD operations, you don't need a separate channel for every device...I've never had a problem with the above config in my own PC. No coasters, no slow HDs. Be sure to enable UltraDMA mode in BIOS and OS.

 

[Crashman]

OK, you've heard a few opinions, now an explanation:
IDE cannot access more than one device at a time per channel. What it does instead is switch back and forth between drives on that channel.
Put your CDRW as Secondary Master so it can have continous data flow. Put your CDROM on the Primary Slave position. That way when you write from CD to CD, you can have nearly continuous data flow from the reader to the writer, as long as you don't access your hard drive much during the process.
Now, you could also have a second hard drive attached, but the only position left for it would be secondary slave. This is a good place for it.
This arrangement used to be NEEDED to avoid buffer underruns before the advent of "burn-proof", and will result in better write speeds (fewer error corrections) even on the newest drives.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

 

[btvillarin]

Hey, thanks for simple, yet effective, explanation. That was well-said.

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