Help ... problems with two DVD's?

[vclayman]

Are there any known issues running 2 internal DVD?s in one system? I have a freshly built system and all components are new.

Fired everything up last night and sometimes they auto read and sometimes one or both DVD?s won?t even read at all.

Have I set them up right? I?m using a SATA HD; this and the DVD-R are new to me. The SATA drive leaves all my IDE?s open and I only have the 2 DVD?s ? so what is the best location for them?

Here?s the system. An ASUS P4C800E Delux, Plextor PX-708A DVD-R, Sony DVD Player and a Maxtor 80GB SATA 7200 RPM DiamondMax PLUS 9. I have the Maxtor on SATA 1, the Sony as master on the primary IDE and the Plextor as master on the secondary. Only the PM would show as bootable in the BIOS. I put the SONY on PM to use it to boot when needed (I remember somewhere hearing it was not wise to load software from burners ? or is the issue of loading through a burner no longer a problem).

I want to make sure I can copy CD?s and DVD?s to the burner in the best possible way ? and use the player for the workhorse of loading apps and all.

Again ? can 2 DVD?s exist in one system? Heck, how else can you copy a data DVD?

Thanks, clayman

 

[bluntman]

I have 4 hard drives running off of a Promise tx2 133 card, a DVD-ROM drive as my PM, a CDRw as the PS and a DVD burner as the SM and everything works fine. I am able to backup DVDs without a problem, although you cannot do it on-the-fly (I don't believe there is software that allows that).

As to why one or both drives are not showing up at boot up, I don't know, I'd suggest rechecking your cabling, the jumpers and you BIOS settings.

 

[DeeTees]

Some DVD drives do not like being master drives, some do not like being slaves.

I would suggest that you set up both DVD drives as masters and place them on seperate IDE channels. If this works you will have the fastest possible read write speed from all of your drives.

If your system balks at such a set up try switching the DVD drive to slave on one channel. If it still does not work swap both drives from master to slave on the originally unswitched channel and from slave to master on the originally switched channel. Finally if it still does not work switch both to slave on seperate channels.

I do not suggest running both on the same IDE channel since you are more likely to run into master/slave conflicts on a single IDE channel.

 

[vclayman]

Thanks guys ...

DeeTees, thats exactly how I had hoped to set them up (both as masters on each IDE) with the Plextor on 1. I had to move the DVD player over to IDE 1 as master for it to show up in the boot sequence. The 8X Plextor I had to set to slave on the secondary. I have only done this since I had heard year?s back that you should not load from a burner ... but is this still the case?

So with this conf it?s funny ... I still get some CD?s that will not read ... but less then when they were both as masters on each channel.

The only thing that threw me about all this is the SATA. It's so new to me.

Thanks also bluntman (ah, those were the daze ? 1967) they all show up in the boot sequencer ... its just that I can only have 3 of either the HD, 2 DVD's or the floppy. So I have to put whatever DVD I want to boot as master on 1 for it to show up.

Thanks guys! Things were so easy with IDE drives and CD Burners and all a year and a half ago.

Any other suggestions on setting up my new SATA drive system will be MOST appreciated.

Thanks again ... clayman.

Intel P4 3.2
ASUS P4C800 E Delux
1 Gb OCZ 3500 DDR 433MHZ Copper
80Gb SATA Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 9
Plextor PX708A DVD±R/RW
Sony DDU1621/SV 16X IDE DVD
ATI 9800XT
Sound Blaster AUDIGY 2 ZX
PANASONIC Floppy
Enermax EG-465P-VE
(All new hardware)