Can dvdRW and HDD share same data cable?

[ukb008]

Hi, PROs.

This is my drives map on Gigabyte GA 81845GV motherboard (supports 4 internal IDEs):

Floppy D Dr (A:) [no FDD present]

IDE Port-1: (as master)
HDD1_VOL1 (C:) [System and Program Files]
HDD1_VOL2 (D:)

IDE Port-1: (as Slave)
HDD2_VOL1 (E:) 30 GB
HDD2_VOL2 (F:) 30 GB
HDD2_VOL3 (G:) 30 GB
HDD2_VOL4 (H:) 30 GB

IDE Port-2: (as Master)
DVD-RAM Drive (I:) [This is my internal LG DVD-Writer]

IDE Port-2: (as Slave)
DVD/CD-RW Drive (J:) [My ASUS DVD-ROM/CD-RW Combo]

What I did was this:

I removed the DVD-ROM/CD-RW Combo from IDE Port-2 and put a new 160 GB Western Digital Internal IDE Hard Disk (as Slave). I booted my computer. My Computer > (right click) > Manage > Disk Management Shows No Drive (I:) or (J:), i.e., nothing in IDE Port 2. Shut off computer.

Took power off (I:) LG DVD-RW, and booted. Disk management now showed new Western Digi HD. I formatted it into a Dynamic Volume (I use Legal Win XP sp3). Shut off computer.

Put power-connection on to LG DVD-RW, booted up. Disk management shows nothing on IDE Port-2.

Questions:

1. Can an Internal HD coexist on same IDE Cable with an Internal DVD-RW drive? If they can, then what did I do wrong?

2. Should I have put my HD on IDE Port-2 as Master and the LG DVD-RW as Slave?

3. How can I use all the four IDE drives (3 Hard Disks and 1 DVD-RW) on my 2 IDE Ports?

4. Any other advice?

Thanks, and regards.

[mariush]

1. Yes, hard drives and dvd rw drives can coexist on the same cable. Any IDE device can be connected to any IDE cable, the computer won't make any distinction. You probably had both devices configured as MASTER. You must look at the jumpers and set the hard drive on MASTER and the DVD RW drive on SLAVE. But read below first.

2. You should put hard drives as master and optical drives as slave.

3. Yes, you can use three hard drives and 1 dvd rw on your ide ports

4. Don't mix hard drives and dvd rw drives on the same IDE cable.

There are several "standards" of communication between devices and the motherboard through the IDE cable: PIO 4, ATA 33, ATA 66, ATA 100, ATA 133. PIO 4 is the worst, ATA 33 is better, ATA 66, 100 and 133 are the best but require an IDE cable that has 80 wires instead of 40 wires.

The latest hard drives that were made on IDE worked at ATA 100 or ATA 133 (mostly Maxtor as they "invented" it).
Optical drives didn't need the speed these last standards so they mostly remained on ATA 33 (which gives 33 MB/s, more than enough to burn DVDs at 8x speed that's about 12 MB/s ). Only some of the latest optical drives that burned DVDs at 16x or higher started to use ATA 66 and required a 80 wire cable to work at high speeds.

If your optical drive uses plain ATA 33 to work, it's not recommended to combine it with a hard drive, because the speed of the hard drive may be lower, you degrade the performance. If the optical drive uses ATA 66, then it's not such a big deal and it doesn't matter.

It usually makes no difference if a hard drive is set master or slave or if both hard drives share the same cable performance wise, because it's not often you read data at very high rate from both hard drives at a time, to reach the maximum cable capacity of 133 MB /s in the case of ATA 133.

The only reason you would each DVD-RW drive to be on separate cable (each one slave on a separate IDE cable for example) would be if you want to burn two DVDs at the same time.


In conclusion, I'd suggest:

IDE1 : hdd master, dvd-rw slave IDE 2: hdd master , dvd rw slave for 2hdd , 2dvd-rw
IDE1 : hdd master, hdd slave IDE 2: hdd master, dvd rw slave for 3 hdd, 1 dvd-rw

(but remember you MUST set the jumpers on each to MASTER or SLAVE - usually the first pair of pins towards the ide cable is MASTER, the second pair of pins is SLAVE and on some hard drives removing the jumper completely means the hard drive is SLAVE but look at the writing near the pins, it should say MA, SL or CS from master, slave and cable select)

[Blue_MiSfit]

Mariush is wise.

Take careful note:


If your optical drive uses plain ATA 33 to work, it's not recommended to combine it with a hard drive, because the speed of the hard drive may be lower, you degrade the performance.


In short - you CAN make a CD-ROM and a HDD share an IDE channel, but it will usually impact HDD performance. How much? Hard to say.

Best option? Make IDE die, and use all SATA :devil:

If that's not feasible due to budgetary constraints, then you should follow mariush's suggestions! Be extra special careful about your Master / Slave jumper settings.

Gosh, it's been awhile since I've thought about that stuff!!

Derek

[ukb008]

Hello mariush
Hello Blue_MiSfit

Thanks for your time. Yes, my mistake was in jumper settings, silly me. Now everything is fine.
And yes, SATA HDs are preferable, but that will mean a change of motherboard. Since this one is performing fine ...

You have my regards.