Connecting my DVD drive to the motherboard (please help)

N

newbie2005

New Member
Hi folks,

I have a Dell Dimension 8400 desktop pc, 3.2 Ghz processor, pretty impressive speed. The drawback is that my motherboard only has one IDE channel. And of course, that's not enough to hookup my 3 IDE devices:

1 DVD-ROM
1 DVD+/-RW
1 ATAPI iomega Zip drive

Currently only the 2 optical drives are being active, through the motherboard's one and only IDE channel. So, today I finally bought a PCI card, i.e., the Ultra ATA/133 IDE RAID controller card. It has 2 IDE channels (primary & secondary).

I guess the question is, should I retain my 2 optical drives's current connection thru a single IDE channel on my motherboard? My objective is to increase the data transfer rate (i.e., performan disc copy) between the 2 optical drives. I'm not sure if it's faster for 2 optical drives (master to slave) to share the same IDE channel, -OR- 1 optical drive per IDE channel.

Can you folks offer some advice?
 
I guess the question is, should I retain my 2 optical drives's current connection thru a single IDE channel on my motherboard? My objective is to increase the data transfer rate (i.e., performan disc copy) between the 2 optical drives. I'm not sure if it's faster for 2 optical drives (master to slave) to share the same IDE channel, -OR- 1 optical drive per IDE channel.
Click to expand...
One optical drive per cable (so one on the PCI controller, one on the onboard)
 
For this "1-drive-per-IDE-channel" connection method, Do I need to set the jumperfor each drive? There's master/slave/cable select.
 
For this "1-drive-per-IDE-channel" connection method, Do I need to set the jumperfor each drive? There's master/slave/cable select.
Click to expand...
Well if it's just one drive ... no. :)
 
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