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vsp · 07-15-2003, 07:50 PM

I picked up a couple of drive-bay brackets tonight so that I could install both CDRWs at once, and futzed around with the cabling... and the results were pretty good.

The problem seems to be that my motherboard's IDE interfaces were laid out like this:

Primary UltraATA100-IDE Primary IDE
================ ================
================ ================
Secondary UltraATA100-IDE Secondary IDE

which I'll call (A B
..................C D) for short.

When I looked around, the hard drive was plugged into A, the 52x drive was plugged into D (which is where the 12x was plugged in before)... and nothing was in B or C.

How I have it now is the hard drive in A (set as primary master), the 12x drive in D (set as secondary master) and the 52x drive in C (set as secondary slave). With the 52x drive plugged into the UltraATA-100 port, the results are MUCH different -- I burned a ~680MB CD at 48x in 4:25 and at 32x in 4:30. (I'm not sure if the media I am using is rated for > 32x, so I'll try another brand, but 4 minutes is a damn sight better than 11 minutes.)

Both the read buffer and the recorder buffer level were jumping around like mad during the burning, but buffer underrun protection was on, so the end product was fine.

Suggestions as to more optimal cable configurations are welcome. My IDE cable isn't long enough to plug both CDRW drives into the UltraATA port in their current case configuration (at the top of the minitower), so I figured that the slower drive would be fine at the old IDE setting (letting me burn at 4x when needed) and the faster drive could use the better connection.

So when I get another hard drive, how do I work that into the above mix?

07-15-2003, 07:50 PM	#13
vsp Syndrome of a Down Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: West Chester Posts: 1,367	Well, that's a bit better... I picked up a couple of drive-bay brackets tonight so that I could install both CDRWs at once, and futzed around with the cabling... and the results were pretty good. The problem seems to be that my motherboard's IDE interfaces were laid out like this: Primary UltraATA100-IDE Primary IDE ================ ================ ================ ================ Secondary UltraATA100-IDE Secondary IDE which I'll call (A B ..................C D) for short. When I looked around, the hard drive was plugged into A, the 52x drive was plugged into D (which is where the 12x was plugged in before)... and nothing was in B or C. How I have it now is the hard drive in A (set as primary master), the 12x drive in D (set as secondary master) and the 52x drive in C (set as secondary slave). With the 52x drive plugged into the UltraATA-100 port, the results are MUCH different -- I burned a ~680MB CD at 48x in 4:25 and at 32x in 4:30. (I'm not sure if the media I am using is rated for > 32x, so I'll try another brand, but 4 minutes is a damn sight better than 11 minutes.) Both the read buffer and the recorder buffer level were jumping around like mad during the burning, but buffer underrun protection was on, so the end product was fine. Suggestions as to more optimal cable configurations are welcome. My IDE cable isn't long enough to plug both CDRW drives into the UltraATA port in their current case configuration (at the top of the minitower), so I figured that the slower drive would be fine at the old IDE setting (letting me burn at 4x when needed) and the faster drive could use the better connection. So when I get another hard drive, how do I work that into the above mix? Last edited by vsp; 07-15-2003 at 08:06 PM.