rhawk7938, I agree with what you say, but regardless, the IDE config is wrong & should be corrected ASUS A7N8X-X Athlon XP 1800+ 8.5 x 200MHz 1280MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7 Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro SP1

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Jam, I have read this frequently here on this forum, but I have built probably 50+ machines and have always put hard drives together and cd rom and cdrw together and never had one fail to work. Even if that was so, and I am not doubting I am wrong in the way I build, I cannot see how the setup there could that worked before could suddenly now not work, with nothing else different and so I think the cheap generic dvd drive headed south as rhawk suggests. I have quit buying generic and even many branded cd roms and dvd players and rw's lately, as I find most of them don't last long. I used Sony cdrw's for years with no problems, then all of a sudden one after another bad quickly so I will nbot buy any but Plextor anymore regardless of price.

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Just my humble opinion but... I'll give you, that maybe 2 drives on the same IDE could possibly cause a problem, but I have yet to see it happen. That being the case, I would say wrong is not the correct term to use. Perhaps it's not optimal,but for me the jury is still out. All my systems are 2 drives together and the ones I've built or added drives to for others are as well, and they all work fine. Unless there is a specific benefit to changing, I'll leave well enough alone. If it always caused a problem, then I would agree with you. I would think, if it is that problematic, all the drive mfrs. would warn against it, and I have not seen that.

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"I have read this frequently here on this forum, but I have built probably 50+ machines and have always put hard drives together and cd rom and cdrw together and never had one fail to work" I didn't say it would "fail to work"...I said it was "wrong", or if you prefer, it is "not the optimal configuration". Maybe you've been lucky, or maybe I've been unlucky, but I HAVE run into problems pairing up two optical drives or two HDDs. For some reason, certain drives just don't play well together when sharing the same cable/channel. It's only happened to me a few times & it took me a while to troubleshoot the 1st time it happened, but I will never config a system that way again. And if I get a system in for repair & see that it's configured that way, I'll change it...whether it had anything to do with the repair issue or not. This explanation is from "Sheppola"...someone I used to chat with on a different forum a LONG time ago (I cleaned it up a little to make it read better): "Constantly misunderstood relationships of IDE controllers and incorrect but normal build configurations by PC builders have caused this situation. When OEM builders or even Commercial PC builders put PCs together, 99% of the time they stick the CD/CDR/DVD drives on the same IDE port/cable merely for convenience of build. This is "NOT" the optimal configuration for most people, especially these days. If you are doing a lot of "On-The-Fly" recordings/copying, then you want the CD/DVD drives on separate IDE ports. My setup. IDE zero - Hard drive = Master, Standard CD = slave. IDE one - Hard drive = Master, CDR/W drive = slave. On-the Fly recordings are at full speed because both devices are "Parents" when burning. Image files are kept on my Main C drive which is my fastest and burnt to my CDR/W drive on my 2nd IDE port. Again, at the time of burning, both devices are "Parent" devices. To understand this, this is how IDE chains work: Single device on an IDE port is a "Parent" (e.g can read and write at the same time across the data busses), therefore it has no "Wait-States". As soon as there are two devices on an IDE port they both become "Child" devices, however they are only "Child" devices if "Both" are being accessed at the same time. A "Child" device cannot read and write at the same time and therefore, "Wait-States" occur. This is where the time goes when burning large files. One device will read a lump of data and then the other device will write it, but it has to wait until the 1st device has read it before it can write it. Now here's the thang (and the common misconception). Just having two devices on the same IDE port/chain of differing speed will not slow down the faster device (usually the hard drive) if the slower device is not being accessed. To all intents and purposes the device "Not" being used at that moment is invisible. All possible hardware configurations have been tried and tested to support this. Quick example: 650 meg data CD, on-the-fly burn, with CD and CDR on same IDE port/chain 24X burn - around 10+ mins Same file, CD on IDE zero and CDR/W on IDE one 24X burn - around 4 mins The reason it's less than half the time is because of other factors, not just the wait-states but also the separate IDE chains will also use RAM more efficiently because of (U)DMA) Note: all drives regularly defragged and all redundant large files removed from drives to make sure swapfile/pagefiles can do their job." http://www.alegsa.com.ar/Visitas/index24/Best%20ide%20configuration.php ASUS A7N8X-X Athlon XP 1800+ 8.5 x 200MHz 1280MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7 Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro SP1

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I dont see why changing the arrangement of the drives would make a difference in the DVD reading CD's. If the laser is broke what effects would i notice? Just noticed the LED on the DVD is flashing with no CD in it, i took it out when it stopped working if your curious as to why i just noticed the flashing. Think i might just take it back to the shop & RAM it down the owners throat. I bought a 30gb HD from him 3 year ago & it clamped up just after a year & he would not replace it. It was a Nikimi, paid £60, what a waste of money. Is Ye Alreet

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Dude, if it's "wrong", change it...it'll only take a few minutes. It may not make any difference to your problem, but then again, it might make all the difference. You can always change it back again. 'Nuff said.... ASUS A7N8X-X Athlon XP 1800+ 8.5 x 200MHz 1280MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7 Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro SP1

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