dvd and hdd on same ide cable

[ezkim0x]

I have an ASUS P4LD2, and by default the hdd connector isn't enabled.

so if I need to format, I have to open up my case, and connect the hdd to the same cable as the dvd drive.. and install windows.. then install the motherboard driver to enable the hdd connectors.

I'm wondering if I kept them both on the same cable, since I don't have a second CD drive or anything.. if it would affect the speed of the computer, or dvd writer?

 

[Lord Evermore]

Both drives will communicate at their full normal speeds (UltraDMA mode 5 or 6 for the hard drive, UDMA mode 2 probably for the DVD). However IDE can only have one device actively communicating at a time on the same cable, so there may be instances where there might be a little more latency and lower throughput, such as when you're reading/writing to a DVD at the same time as the hard drive.

With the first UDMA chipsets, if you stuck an older drive on the cable with a new drive, they'd both run at the lower speed. So a UDMA-33 drive would fall down to PIO mode if you had an old CDROM on the cable too, but that doesn't happen anymore.

If you mean the Parallel ATA controller (ITE brand) isn't enabled by default, you should be able to load those drivers during the Windows install, when it prompts you to press F6. Just have to have the drivers loaded and unzipped onto a floppy.

You can also avoid the problem by getting a PATA to SATA adapter. They only cost about 12 bucks, and let you plug an IDE hard drive into an SATA port, so you can avoid using the add-in controller at all. You might have to set the SATA port in the BIOS to run in "IDE mode" or something similar so that Windows will recognize it.