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From: glee on 22 Feb 2010 11:39
"Boris" <nospam(a)nospam.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9D274FF64A083blahblahcom(a)188.40.43.213...
> "glee" <glee29(a)spamindspring.com> wrote in news:ua2Ftx3sKHA.5904
> @TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl:
>>
>> The ATA specifications call for an 80-wire cable for UDMA4 and up,
>> but
>> if the drive spec is UDMA4, it can attain that on a 40-wire
>> cable....there is just greater risk of interference at high speed.
>> The
>> optical drive burning at 16X goes at something like 22MB/sec, which
>> is
>> slower than the 33MB/sec of UDMA2, so the risk of interference at
>> high
>> speed is usually not an issue. Some computers and optical drive
>> combinations will manage UDMA4 with the 40-wire cable, others will
>> not
>> and will report only UDMA2.
>
> Ah, I wasn't aware of this. I was doing some reading on transfer
> rates/ATA specs, etc, but after an hour or so, that was enough for
> someone like me. It seemed that the more I read, the more questions I
> had and the more I had to dig into hardware specs of the optical
> drives
> and the motherboard/IDE controller. I was overwhelmed. <g>
>>
>> You're probably OK continuing to use that cable for the *optical*
>> drives, but I personally prefer to use the 80-wire cables for
>> everything...and it also meets the specification's requirement. If
>> you
>> replace the drive with another, it might not be as forgiving and
>> report
>> only UDMA2 on that cable, so.....
>
> I will definitely install an 80-wire cable.
>
>>
>> Curious why you placed the slower reader in the "master" position and
>> the faster writer in the "slave" position. That's the reverse of
>> what
>> is usually recommended. I always place the faster drive or the
>> writer
>> in the "master" position.
>
> I wasn't aware that this made a difference. The machine came (Dell
> 4550,
> March 2003) with a CD-RW as master and a DVD-ROM as slave. At some
> point, I swapped out the DVD-ROM with a Plextor DVD-RW (still in
> slave)
> to burn videos. I also used the Plextor to convert about 330 vinyl
> albums to .wav, and burn to CD for my dad. This burned out the CD
> capabilities of the Plextor, and I then replaced it with the current
> Pioneer DVD-RW. I never gave it any consideration as to how to
> configure
> two different speed optical drives on the same IDE channel.
>
> Thanks for all the information.

The drives should work fine in either position, but sometimes you get a
writer that gives trouble if it's not in the "master" position. I
wouldn't worry about it if everything is working. It's just something
that is done when installing the drives in an attempt to pre-empt any
issues.

I've got a couple hundred vinyl LP's I'd like to get on CD....shall I
send them to you? ;-)
--
Glen Ventura, MS MVP Oct. 2002 - Sept. 2009
A+
http://dts-l.net/

From: T Shadow on 23 Feb 2010 17:15

"Boris" <nospam(a)nospam.invalid> wrote in message
news:Xns9D26A27654E46nospamnospaminvalid(a)188.40.43.213...
> I'm running XPHome, SP3, on an IDE machine, cable select.
>
> I've got (I opened the case to be sure, and Windows Explorer reports all
> four drive letters/size/type correctly as):
>
> Primary IDE
> 1) hard drive C, master (end of cable)
> 2) hard drive D, slave
>
> Secondary IDE
> 3) DVD-ROM E, master (end of cable)
> 4) DVD-RW F, slave
>
>
> In Device Manager, the Primary IDE Channel, Advanced Settings tab shows:
> Device 0 (running UDMA 5)
> Device 1 (running UDMA 5)
>
> and the Secondary IDE Channel shows:
> Device 0 (running UDMA 2)
> Device 1 (running UDMA 4)
>
> Here's what I don't understand. Also in Device Manager, if I look at the
> properties of each Disk Drive and each DVD/CD-ROM Drive, I see:
>
> 1) C is listed as location 0 (0)
> 2) D is listed as location 1 (1)
> 3) E is listed as location 0 (0)
> 4) F is listed as location 1 (1)
>
> What does 0 (0), or 1 (1) designate? Is it simply where the device is
> located on the bus (master/slave), without regard to primary or secondary
> IDE Channel? If so, why repeat the location, i.e. 1 (1)?
>
> Thanks.

Can't actually explain it but if you click the ? in the upper right corner
then Location it tells the drive could be other than IDE say SCSI. SCSI can
be 0-7 or even 0-15 and can also have 2 drives per # , ie: LUN0 and
LUN1(IIRC) I don't have a SCSI drive connected to this computer but location
for one of my USB card readers is

Location 0 (USBAT Bridge Slot 0).

So probably it's set up this way for other than IDE that have more drives.
I have a 3 card slot reader and newer ones have even more. HTH


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