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how to install more than 2 optical drives

S

sdaccord01

Senior member
Hi, I have a plextor CDRW a samsung dvd rom drive, and my girlfriend just bought me a pioneer dvd burner. I was wondering if I can keep all three drives at once, or if it is possible (internally that is). I have a P4C800-E motherboard but I don't have money to get SATA hard drives right now
 
Sure, I don't see why not, assuming your computer has 2 IDE channels (pretty sure you do cuz you already have 2 optical drives + your harddrive)...
 
I have 2 hard drives though, i understand that there's a master and a slave for each IDE (primary and secondary), is the only way to go is to get an ata controller card?
 
Originally posted by: sdaccord01
I have 2 hard drives though, i understand that there's a master and a slave for each IDE (primary and secondary), is the only way to go is to get an ata controller card?
Click to expand...

If you already have 2 harddrives then yes, then your IDE slots might be filled up already... and you'll need to get an additional controller card...
 
Yeah, I was looking to prolong the life of my burner so that I can have my dvd burner made to do pretty much just dvd burning, my cdrw to do cd burning and my dvd rom to do some ripping....i'm looking at controller cards, and a lot of them seem to not support atapi (optical drives)....is there such a thing as a cable that you can put on the IDE channel that supports 3 devices? I have 4 bays, 2 occupied right now by my current optical drives, 1 by a sunbeam rheobus controller, and another one for the new drive.
 
Originally posted by: sdaccord01
is there such a thing as a cable that you can put on the IDE channel that supports 3 devices?
Click to expand...

Nope, nothing like that exists... sorry...

 
Okay, now my only option is to get an controller card, anyone recommend one that works with optical drives, not just hard drives?
 
Originally posted by: sdaccord01
Okay, now my only option is to get an controller card, anyone recommend one that works with optical drives, not just hard drives?
Click to expand...

Most of them don't support optical drives.... your best bet is to get an ATA133 controller, move your HDs to it, and then hook up the 3rd optical drive to your onboard controller.... FWIW, you can still boot from the ATA133 card, you'd have to change the boot order in the BIOS to SCSI first...

Dave
 
Anything by Promise should do the job just fine. Put your hard drives on the controller card and put your optical drives on the motherboard controller.

R
 
just wondering, what if i install my 2nd hard drive onto the controller and use my optical as a slave to the primary hard drive? will that work and will that cause any performance problems?
 
Originally posted by: sdaccord01
just wondering, what if i install my 2nd hard drive onto the controller and use my optical as a slave to the primary hard drive? will that work and will that cause any performance problems?
Click to expand...

WTF would you do that? Put the same hardware on the same IDE cable.

 
If your hard drives are both the same make and model (ie both the same model series from the same manufacturer, same size, same speed, etc) you could pick up an IDE RAID card and set yourself up a little RAID array.

Otherwise, I would put both hard drives, each on a separate channel, on the IDE controller.

Ryan
 
Originally posted by: lager
Originally posted by: sdaccord01
just wondering, what if i install my 2nd hard drive onto the controller and use my optical as a slave to the primary hard drive? will that work and will that cause any performance problems?
Click to expand...

WTF would you do that? Put the same hardware on the same IDE cable.
Click to expand...

why? that was true for older hardware and the older 40 pin ribbon cable

i ran an optical primary and slave hdd for a year and nothing happened at all. actually, computer was never turned and reboot only a few times. computer still runs outside as a 2nd pc for my brother and family.
 
get an external USB case.

I have my Pioneer 10x dvd reader Scsi external only when I need to backup my home dvds.
 
how does RAID work? If i make my IDE drives in a RAID config, do I have to reformat my hard drives to do it? There's this one port on my mobo (Asus P4C800-E) that is labeled, "PRI RAID" and it seems like it will work with my IDE cable. If i can get RAID to work and if not that much is involved, I might decide to just do that and free up one of my IDE channels.
 
Originally posted by: sdaccord01
how does RAID work? If i make my IDE drives in a RAID config, do I have to reformat my hard drives to do it? There's this one port on my mobo (Asus P4C800-E) that is labeled, "PRI RAID" and it seems like it will work with my IDE cable. If i can get RAID to work and if not that much is involved, I might decide to just do that and free up one of my IDE channels.
Click to expand...

Yes, you will have to reformat. Make sure you pull the Promise RAID drivers off of your Asus CD and put them on a floppy to have ready when you reinstall XP. At the begining of the install, it will ask you to hit F6 if you have any 3rd party RAID or SCSI drivers. Hit it F6 and follow the later prompts or XP will not see your RAID array.
 
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