Can I run three hard drives and one DVD-RW/CD-RW combo drive?

L

ldburroughs

New Member
My system used to have a DVD-R and a CD-RW with two hard drives. I recently purchased a new 160 GB hd and a DVD-RW/CD-RW combo and replaced my original hd, which still works. Essentially, I now have three hard drives (only two in my system) and the DVD-RW/CD-RW and CD-RW. I don't see the apparent need for both DVD-RW/CD-RW and CD-RW when the first can do all I need and is sufficiently fast for my purposes. I'm pretty sure my system is limited to four devices and so I was considering going with the three hds and the one dvd/cd combo drive. Can I run the hd and dvd/cd drive from the same ribbon? Is it possible with some other method I don't know about?

Thanks for all of your help. By the way, I'm not very tech savy. My experience is only with my system as a hobby. I recently transferred the few remaining inerts of my HP computer to a new Antec Sonata case because of a failed power supply (for the money, I figured, why not, it looks cooler and runs quieter) and everything seems to be working. It is much, much quieter than before. I should have done this a long time ago for this reason alone. My old system sounded like I was computing in a NASA wind tunnel facility.

Have a great day everyone.
 
Yes you can run 3 hd's and 1 cdr-w, i forget what the limit is 24 or ??? Preator or someone will clarify, i think you are only limited by the number of letters in the alphabet to name the drives. There are ribbon cables available with more connectors than the one you are currently using. You only need to define which will be the primary and which will be slaves and make sure the bios and the jumpers on the drives are set properly.
 
the bios and controllers are the limiting factors. If your bios can only detect 2 devices per IDE channel and your contorller only supports 2 channels then you have a 4 IDE device limit. The way to get around this is to buy controller cards
 
My computer, at least the original components still in use (Mobo and CPU), are the type that only allow for four devices. I apologize for my lack of knowledge, but what type of card do I need to purchase? Is it just an IDE Controller card? My next step will be to upgrade the CPU and Mobo but that will take a lot more skill on my part to handle the operating system recognition issue. I guess I'm lucky my system is still working are the transplant.

Thanks again for all of your help.
 
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