2 dvd drives - slave won't work properly

  • Thread starter Thread starter dobie
  • Start date Start date
D

dobie

I recently had a new hard drive installed in my Dell 4600 desktop. After I
got it back, one drive would not operate correctly (clicking when playing
CD's, wouldn't burn some CD's, etc.). Whatever drive is set to "slave" will
not work. Whatever drive is set to "master" works fine. I have already
replaced the ribbon cable. Please help
 
Try swapping the white molex power connectors. Could be your Power Supply
may be flaky or underpowered.
 
Rich Barry said:
Try swapping the white molex power connectors. Could be your Power
Supply may be flaky or underpowered.
Click to expand...


dobie:
While it could be a defective Molex connector causing your problem (assuming
it's always the *same* Molex connector to the optical drive in the Slave
position), it would be a rather unusual situation based upon your
description of the problem.

I'm assuming that before your HDD was replaced (the original was defective,
yes?) there was *no* problem with either of your optical drives, right?

So try this...

Jumper each optical drive to Cable Select. Using your secondary IDE channel,
attach the end connector of your IDE signal cable to the drive you want as
Master, and connect the middle connector of your IDE signal cable to the
drive you want as Slave. See how that goes.

If still a problem, connect your HDD on the secondary IDE channel as Master
and connect (as above) your two optical drives on your primary IDE channel.
See if that works.
Anna
 
Anna said:
Jumper each optical drive to Cable Select. Using your secondary IDE channel,
attach the end connector of your IDE signal cable to the drive you want as
Master, and connect the middle connector of your IDE signal cable to the
drive you want as Slave. See how that goes.
Click to expand...

Badly, if using a 40-pin unmodified cable with pin 28 connected straight
through on both ...
 
dobie said:
I recently had a new hard drive installed in my Dell 4600 desktop. After I
got it back, one drive would not operate correctly (clicking when playing
CD's, wouldn't burn some CD's, etc.). Whatever drive is set to "slave"
will
not work. Whatever drive is set to "master" works fine. I have already
replaced the ribbon cable. Please help
Click to expand...

Doesn't Dell usually set drives to Cable Select?

Do both drives actually work properly, if you connect only one at a time?

HTH
-pk
 
Thanks, but I accomplished this when I swapped where the drives were located.
I also tried "cable select" (this was the original setting) with no positive
results. I may try putting the hard drive on the secondary IDE and the
opticals on the primary IDE, as suggested by someone else.
 
Great ! I put the hard drive on the secondary IDE and the opticals on the
primary IDE, and now everything works.

Thanks so much !

Dobie
 
dobie said:
Great ! I put the hard drive on the secondary IDE and the opticals on the
primary IDE, and now everything works.

Thanks so much !

Dobie
Click to expand...


Dobie:
Well, maybe not-so-great.

The reason I suggested the IDE channel change was really to determine
whether you were dealing with a defective IDE channel - in this case the
secondary IDE channel.

The fact that you're able to boot with your HDD connected to the Secondary
IDE channel (I assume as the Master) would tend to indicate there's no
problem with that channel.

All things considered, it's best that your boot (PATA) HDD be connected as
Primary Master - actually jumpered as Cable Select and connected to the end
connector of your IDE signal cable. Or, if there's a problem with the Cable
Select jumper setting (that sometimes occurs with older PCs), then jumpering
the disk as Master (or Single (unjumpered) if it's a Western Digital HDD and
is the only device connected on the channel). Although with Dell machines
it's extremely rare in my experience that a CS setting will give one a
problem assuming the component is non-defective.

While there's generally no significant problem connecting the boot (PATA)
HDD as Secondary Master (although we have come across a few motherboards
that balked at booting from a device connected on the Secondary IDE
channel), there can be a slight performance hit.

All in all, I'm more comfortable with a boot HDD connected as Primary Master
(either jumpered Master or through CS). So could you give this another try
if it's not too onerous for you to do so?

Carefully check the jumper settings on all three devices - preferably using
CS - and reconnect your boot drive as Primary Master and your two optical
drives on the secondary IDE channel. I trust you're reasonably certain your
IDE signal cables are non-defective and you've securely connected (both
power & data) the devices. Give it another shot if you can and see how it
goes. If still a problem then revert to the configuration that works.
Anna
 
Thanks, but I accomplished this when I swapped where the drives were located.
I also tried "cable select"  (this was the original setting) with no positive
results. I may try putting the hard drive on the secondary IDE and the
opticals on the primary IDE, as suggested by someone else.
Click to expand...

Please note that the Primary IDE should always be used for hard drives
and the Secondary IDE for optical / non-harddrive drives. Several
motherboards that use the IDE (PATA) interfaces are only offering the
enhanced UltraDMA IDE drive access on the Primary IDE channels.
Secondary IDE channels usually are slower.

Replace all the IDE cables with the UltraDMA 80 wire 40 pin IDE
cables. These cables tend to offer better "signals" as it seems that
the individual signal wires are shielded.
 
Please note that the Primary IDE should always be used for hard drives
and the Secondary IDE for optical / non-harddrive drives. Several
motherboards that use the IDE (PATA) interfaces are only offering the
enhanced UltraDMA IDE drive access on the Primary IDE channels.
Secondary IDE channels usually are slower.

Replace all the IDE cables with the UltraDMA 80 wire 40 pin IDE
cables. These cables tend to offer better "signals" as it seems that
the individual signal wires are shielded.


While we would tend to agree that where a *single boot* (PATA) HDD is
installed in a PC it should ordinarily be connected as Primary Master in the
system. However, to state that the Primary IDE channel "should always" be
used for HDDs and the Secondary IDE channel be used for optical drives is
not necessarily so.

There's no problem connecting an optical drive at the Slave position on the
Primary IDE channel nor is there any reason not to connect a secondary HDD
(one that is being used for storage/backup purposes for example) either as a
Slave on the Primary IDE channel or anywhere on the Secondary IDE channel.

There seems to be a myth that a Secondary IDE channel is "slower" than the
Primary IDE channel. It's a myth, nothing more. It hasn't been true (if it
ever has been) at least over the past dozen years or so.

We've used removable HDDs for many years now. Many of these desktop systems
involve a dual-boot configuration where a single removable HDD is installed
together with an internal HDD. We generally set up the system where the
removable HDD (containing its OS) is installed as Primary Master and the
internal HDD (with its OS) is installed as Secondary Master. This
configuration allows the user to easily boot to either OS depending upon
whether the removable HDD is powered on or off. We have not found any
performance degradation based upon the boot drive connected as Secondary
Master other than (at times) a very slight increase in bootup time - a few
seconds at most.

We have also not found any performance difference should the internal HDD be
connected as a Primary Slave, although we have come across a few
motherboards which balked at booting from a device connected as Slave.

Generally speaking (and this is based upon experiments we conducted a few
years ago), should two optical drives be installed in the machine, it makes
no performance difference whether both are connected on the same IDE channel
(presumably the secondary IDE channel), or one is connected on the Primary
IDE channel and the other is connected on the Secondary IDE channel.
However, in a few - very few - cases there was a performance difference
(disk-copying speed from one optical drive to the other) depending upon
their IDE channel connections. But the irony here is that sometimes better
performance occurred when both devices were connected on the same
(Secondary) IDE channel; other times better performance occurred when the
devices were connected on separate IDE channels. In any event the
performance hit was generally minimal.
Anna
 
Back
Top