wakeydave

i've just bought a new pc, it's got a dvd rw drive but i want to know if i can add my old dvd r drive to this new pc, if i can which is the best way to do it?

i'm not very clued up with pc's (you might have guessed?)

explainations in VERY simple terms please!!!

boxst

Hello

Yes you can. You just need to connect the other DVD drive to the same cable in the computer.

And this explains it a lot better than I could: http://www.helpwithpcs.com/upgrading...d_recorder.htm

Steve.

Daz34

You don't want to connect it to the same IDE cable, you want to connect it to a different one. That way you can copy from drive to drive on the fly. If they are on the same cable they share the same bandwidth & you will more than likely get errors when copying.

Darren

boxst

Mmmm. I thought that if you did that then the hard drive was reduced to a lower speed?

Barmyclown

The dvd drives need to be seperated from the same cable as the hard drive. so if you are still running ide instead of seriel ide both dvd drives will have to share a cable. If they do the recorder needs to be the master and the normal dvd rom drive needs to be the slave. But DO NOT MIX THE HARD DRIVE WITH ANOTHER TYPE OF DRIVE.

Daz34

Only if the hard drive is the SLAVE. Run the hard drive as MASTER and the DVD as SLAVE and both devices will run at full speed as the MASTER device designates the fastest transfer speed.


Why not? I have never had any problems doing this as long as you set it up right

Darren

Barmyclown

[QUOTE=Daz34]Only if the hard drive is the SLAVE. Run the hard drive as MASTER and the DVD as SLAVE and both devices will run at full speed as the MASTER device designates the fastest transfer speed.

The Ide system is designed to run at one speed per channel. So the slowest device on the channel determines the speed. Not a problem if the dvd is running mode 5, same as most modern hard drives. Most opticial drives run at least mode 4. which is 66MB/s. so if mixed with a mode 5 drive 100/133MB/s; not much of a performance differance in real world, but the mode 4 drive will make the mode 5 drive operate in mode 4. The bios will still detect the mode 5 device as mode 5 and display it as so. But it will be operating in mode 4.

Daz34

Sorry you are right BC!