How to set up optimally?

Hello,

I'd like to know how to set up these devices optimally and for best performance.

My current setup is:

Primary master [HDD with no operating system on it] connected to Pri_ide1 slot on MB

Primary slave [Auto]

Secondary Master [CD-R ROM] connected to Sec_ide1 slot on MB

Secondary slave [DVD-ROM]

My bootable OS (Windows XP Pro) is located on an SATA HDD connected to Pri_SATA1.

I fear that the HDD with data on it (no OS) should not be primary master? Can I set primary master for IDE to [NONE]??

Also, after I installed the program CloneCD, then it doesn't work any more. Previously I only had an IDE HDD. The log of CloneCD says "searching for SCSI/ATAPI ..." but it never finds it.

 

Your setup looks fine to me. The whole point of SATA is that you can locate the drives anywhere on the array you want. There is no Master Slave as such.

You must designate an IDE drive as a master when it is used alone on a channel.

 

Hi and thanks.

Does it mean that I have to plug the 80-conductor ide ribbon cable to the CD-R Liteon ROM and the old IDE HDD to the 40-conductor ide ribbon cable?

And if not, then how should I do it?

I cannot access my DVD-ROM and CD-R ROM properly. They work very slow and freeze. Also, the program CloneCD searches for the IDE bus very long?

 

I solved it partially only. I made the IDE HDD work as Primary Slave. On Secondary Master there is Liteon CD-R ROM and Secondary Slave is DVD-ROM.
Although both ROM devices are accessible faster now, there is still no such speed as before (ie. when I didn't have the other SATA HDD).

Maybe there is something to speed the ROMs up?

 

Try setting the IDE HD jumper at Cable Select since you have the 80 cond. ribbon on it.

The burner and rom are Ok now but verify the jumpers are set right. Burners always need to be Masters.

 

Managed!!

Yes, Surferdude2 - you were right! Placing the jumper to Cable select gave me the optimal speed like before! Thank you a lot!

 

Thanks for posting your success so others can share!

 

Hm, it's strange but after I restarted Windows, then it started to happen again. I mean, the access to the ROM devices is very slow.

The jumper was all the time set to Cable select as I noticed. I put it to Power limit setting or so but it worked only in one Windows session.
I removed the jumper so it works as Slave but it is still a problem.
To recap:
Primary master is AUTO
Primary slave is the old ide hdd
Secondary master is Liteon CD-R ROM
Secondary slave is AUTO which sets itself to DVD-ROM

The new SATA HDD is connected to primary sata1.

 

I'd still like to see the old ide HD detected as a master on the Primary. Since it's all alone on that channel, be sure it's plugged into the furthest connector (end connector) of the 80 cond. cable and set as Cable Select.

 

ralfska - you've gotten good advice from "the master" and should follow same but I usually setup CDRW's or DVDRW's as slave to Read only DVD's set as master on the same IDE header while using an 80 wire, 40 pin cable. Can't see any speed improvement by putting devices on seperate IDE's or reversing master/slave designation. Always use CS on HDD's whenever ......... then again you've already been advised as such.

 

The old IDE HDD is primary master now (jumper set to Cable select). It was also connected this way at the very beginning.
It's strange, because sometimes I can gain normal access to my ROM devices and sometimes they are very slow and Windows searches for them.

I don't know what to do anymore. When I remove the old IDE HDD, then everything's OK.

 

It is an Asus A7V8X with an onboard SATA. Asus don't stay anything special on how to connect an HDD via SATA.
However, when I unplug the IDE HDD, then I can't see the problem. Also, the problem doesn't happen everytime, ie not at each Windows session. I have my doubts if it is really a hardware problem. Maybe there is a driver that interferres. Is it a way to determine this? For instance, by starting windows in Safe Mode?
On the other hand, is it a good idea to download drivers, e.g. for the graphic card from its producer or stick to using that which came with Windows installation cd?

 

Christer, your last post made me really sad ...

In addition, I figured that the old IDE HDD has nothing to do with the problem I've been experiencing. I unplugged the wire from the IDE HDD and can see the same problem happen.
Now I'm at a loss. Maybe there is something with the array which was set up. It looks as follows:

FastTrak 376

ID Mode Size Track-Mapping Status
1* 1+0 Stripe 120034M 14593/255/63 Functional

The odd thing is that it sometimes works OK and sometimes not. (

 

Trying to access my DVD-ROM by double clicking it, this info popped up:

"E:\is not accessible.
The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error. "

What could this mean?

 

DVD-ROM suspicious

I noticed following: at boot time, the DVD-ROM is not always detected by Bios as secondary slave. Sometimes the Bios indicates it and sometimes [Auto] is visible.
Could it be that the DVD-ROM is corrupted although it normally worked OK? I've just change the ribbon cable but it happened again. I tried unplugging the DVD-ROM and will see what happens.

 

Christer:

I've tried this already, ie setting bios defaults. I did it at the very beginning. My suspission is also the DVD-ROM... It is quite old (2.5 years) so it can't be newer than the bios which is the latest of April 2004. However, the DVD used to work normally.

The worst thing is that all that evil started happening after installing the new SATA HDD. It really gives my hard times! And I wish I could figure what it is.