DVD-R/RW Install Location?

Hi all: Just got me a Pioneer DVR-A05U DVD recorder still in the box. (U is 4x record) Question is, what IDE channel to install on. Currently have 5 drives installed. (6 counting floppy) as follows:

C: Hard drive, IDE Channel 1 Master
D & E: Hard drive, (partitioned) IDE Channel 1 Slave
F: Hard drive, PCI IDE Controller, Channel 1, master
G: CDR/RW IDE Channel 2, Master
H: DVD ROM IDE Channel 2, Slave

At first it seems obvious to pull the CDR drive, but, it has 48X write speed, DVDR drive CD write speed is only 16X. I guess I could put it on the PCI controller, but I'm just not sure. I really could use some input on this. Also, anybody got one of these DVD-R drives installed? Comments on software?

Software is another question. Drive comes with DVD burning software and movie editing software, OEM versions, Roxio 5.3 Basic, Sonic's My DVD 4.0, Pinnacle packet writing, Arc Soft Show Biz.

I have Nero including In CD packet writing (retail), Arc Soft Show Biz (retail) on the machine now, Pioneer's instructions call for uninstallation. Nuts to that! Any opinions???

 

You didn't say what operating system you're using. But, assuming it's Windows 98 or later, it will be plug-and-play. Just install the item (with the computer turned off), and when you reboot, follow the instructions and the new hardware will be installed as the next available drive letter.

 

Thanks for the comeback davot, yes, plug & play, but which channel? master or slave?, keep current software or follow mfg instructions and delete all writing software????

Sorry about OS omission, was on my signature, no idea why signature didn't show on prior post. Running XP Home

 

Martinr121:

I'd recommend making the new DVD burning device a Master on the second channel. My reasoning is the same for a CDRom or a CDRW. Given your limited or finite IDE connections, you must make some choices.

Brangwen

 

Thanks Brangwen: I agree with that, just didn't want to give up the 48X speed of the CDR drive. Just wondering though, I could make it or DVD-R master on the PCI controller card and switch drive "F" HDD to slave on that card. Do you know if drives on PCI controller card has same performance as on boards IDE channels?? I plan on ditching the DVD ROM drive as I won't need it anymore. Just too many choices. I'm just looking to not ***** up a system that is performing well.

At this point I'm just as much concerned with the software aspect, I can't seem to clarify my thinking on that issue. I guess I'll leave my retail software in place and see what happens. I think I'll post those questions on the "Applications" board and see what comes back there.

 

I suggest installing a ATA133 PCI adapter card.
Promise Ultra133 TX2
This will give you the ability to add 4 more IDE devices.

I recommend you place your hdd's on the card after you install the ata drivers. That way you can keep the cdrom, cdrw and dvd on the ide.

Besides, that controller can use hdds of up to 137,000,000GB each. Seems windows has a 2 TB limit though
The bios in the card will fool the motherboard bios to allow for the bigger hdds even if it has a limit. A good investment in my book.

Mine is
cdrom - Master on the primary ide
cdrw - Master on the secondary ide

ATA card
I have 4 hdds here. by the way, sometimes if you put cdroms, cdrws and dvd drives here the computer just slows down for some reason.

 

Hey Train: Thanks for the input. I have a Promise PCI ATA 133 controller card installed, I'm not sure what model, recent purchase, will have to find model #. currently drive F, HDD is drive 1 master on this card, other 3 positions are empty. Boards IDE channels are 1, 2 HDD, master and slave, 2, CDR master DVDROM slave.

See if Understand what you are saying. Use board's IDE channels for New DVD-R (master channel 1) and current CDR & DVD ROM drives as master and slave respectively, channel 2, Then place my three hard drives on the PCI ATA controller? This approach makes sense to me, although my biggest drive is 80GB.

Next question, if I switch all these drives around, is XP going to figure out what happened????? Or should I start with switching one at a time? C drive first to PCI Card? How is my board's BIOS going to deal with no bootable drive? Will the PCI Card's BIOS boot to "C" drive without re-configuring board's BIOS??

In XP's computer management, the F drive on the PCI card is listed as drive "0" and the "C" drive on the boards IDE channel is listed as drive "1" which I never could understand. I'm not sure if I need to set some bootable drive in the boards bios.

So many questions, sorry. I just opened and looked inside the case, so many cables! Good grief!! What a job to switch the drives!!

I just made up a new poem: "Oh what a tangled mess we weave when first we practice to build PCs. "

 

martinr: Train came up with a good suggestion that I actually had considered suggesting but forgot! I had my Plextor CDRW cabled to an old ATA66 Promise card a year ago and it ran very nicely.

I did not respond to suggest alternate cabling ideas but to compliment you on your poem. Sir Walter would be green with envy!

Brangwen

 

Brangwen: Thanks for the compliment, but the poetry industry has nothing to worry about from me.

Anyhow, I like Train's suggestion, all hard drives on the PCI controller, but, I'm very nervous about just switching all the cables, especially at the same time, don't know if XP would survive moving all the drives, cause it would be hard drives C, D, E, F on the controller card and G, CDRW, H, DVD ROM, & I, DVD-R/RW on board IDE.

I'm looking for step by step where machine will boot after C moved to Controller. What do you think?

Anybody?

 

It will take a bit longer but yes , as long as the C: in on the Primary of ATA it will boot, but you will need to install the card and add the drivers first.
My bios allowed me to set it so that I can boot to it quicker. By the way, windows sees the card as a scsi device and in device manger that is where you will find it.

 

Jeeze Train, thanks. My board's bios has SCSI Boot option available for selection, Connect C to primary PCI IDE controller, set boot option in MOB to SCSI & let her rip?

Any thoughts on doing all drive switching (without new drive) simultaneous, or one at a time?

Scares the bejabbers out of me.

 

Well, I went and did it! Now booting from PCI IDE controller. All HDDs switched, XP don't seem to even know it happened. Everything seems ok, machine seemed a little slow at first, but now it is back to where it was speed wise. Boot time about the same.

Now to install the DVD-R drive, will become master on IDE channel 1. I'll post results.

Thanks for all the help.

 

Seems I have a post missing. Glad to see you up and running good again.

 

Train: Fancy seeing you here again. Well, up and running but have been having some problems. Machine doing some freeze ups on me. When I was typing the post to Rogi's USB problems, the machine froze for about 5 seconds then ok. Did it 3 times.

Then when I hit the post's preview button she froze again about 10 seconds, with hour glass, then went to the preview page.

If it keeps up, it is goodbye from the C drive to the PCI controller.

 

Now freezing can also be caused by the video card overheating.
What have you got running in the background? I may have failed to see it, but what OS also?

 

Hey Train: Wow, I just lost access to everything on all drives. What a crash. Suspect caused by System Works conflict with Go Back.

I'm up and running on a newly partitioned C drive, (wiped clean I might add) XP would not install any other way, tried everything both Micrsoft Tech Support and I could think of.

Now, my machine can see the two other hard drives in Computer Management but not under My Computer. The files are still there, but can't be read.

I've been working on this for so long, since day before yesterday, I'm not about to give up, got to find a way to save those files. XP only wants to format drives.

I'm too tired to continue now, will try a new post to the board with this new problem. If you can be of any help, I'd sure appreciate it.

 

Humm, was the old install using NTFS and this one Fat32? Cause Fat32 can not work with NT files. But nt can work with Fat32.

A suggestion, invest into PowerQuest Drive Image 2002. Learn to use it. I imaged my XP install to cds and the image back to the hdd took about 20 minutes. Had everthing all setup just as I had set it up as a base in case I goofed and I did. Seems I saved about 40 minutes over a new install without counting the downloading of the updates and the like.

Suspect caused by System Works
Now that is money you can take to the bank! After Win95, it should have been renamed. Make you crash, guarranteed.
So leave it off. And after you install something, wait a day or so to see how the program reacts. The only good things Nortons has that I like is Diskedit and Ghost.

 

current All file file system ntfs. Did not try to install as fat 32. "C" & "D" drives still have all files, Show up in Dos dir, but can't be read by OS. MS advises take to drive to data recovery service.

As you know, I was just getting ready to install DVD-R drive, was going to use (among other things) to make full backups. Day Late, dollar short. Just to make my day brighter, got bill from IRS, $1,900. Can I defect to Russia? (note to CIA: If you're reading this, just kidding)

Had "Go Back" on machine, came crunch time, got message. "cant find any restore points ", although it did save my bacon a couple of other times, this time no go.

 

I have a burner in each of my computers and I use PowerQuest DI 2002 to make Images of each hdd. Plus I clone the C: to D: which is the primary on my 2nd hdd and is bootable. Yes, I can get back up in a few minutes. Backups are real handy. Yep learned the hard way myself.

 

I've seen the light. soon as I can get restored, I'll get backed up to the hilt. Did you see the new post I statrted, "Drive can't be read, files there "? Got some other help, will wait till moring, I'm going to try slave old C to new C then run CHKDSK /r That's how D became readable, completly by accident, CHKDSK was run by new installation of GoBack. GoBack said it couldn't write to the drive and then shut down the machine, then on re-boot, CHKDSK ran.

I'm hoping that with XP running, CHKDSK may be able to fix file system on the old C drive.. Wish me luck.