Installed New CD Burner, Something Strange

[ryeguy640]

I just purchased a Plextor 16/10/40 IDE CDR. This is the way my system is setup. Asus Cusl2 MB, latest Chipset and Ultra ATA100 Storage Drivers, IBM HD on the Primary Master IDE Channel, Plextor CDR on Secondary Master, Pioneer DVD on Secondary Slave and i'm runinng Windows 98SE. I just installed the latest firmware's for both drives and all of the jumpers are set correctly. My problem is, when I go into My Computer and Right-Click on either the DVD or CDR, my computer hangs with the little hour glass never going away unless I do ctrl-alt delete and shutdown the My Computer window. I know that I should be able to check the properties of the drives just like I would with the hard drive. It does this with, or without CD's in the drives. If I do put in a CD in either of the drives, I can double-click the drives icon and it reads the data on the disk. I just can't figure this problem out and its been buggin me. I have succesfully burned MP3's onto a CD and the DVD drive plays DVD's fine. Its just this one little problem. I have another question. Whats the longest lenght that an UltraATA100 IDE cable can be? I've heard 18 inches, will a 24 inch cable work? Thanks

[Storm90]

oK if you have your burner connected to the controller card you will have this problem. If so remove the burner from the controller card and if possible connected it to your primarymaster where your hardrive use to be, But first go into the bios and remove the harddrive from from the bios. If you have a seconed hard drive add it to the card.Then run your dvd drive off the secondarydrive on the board as Master,same with the burner. See if this works. This how mine are set up. The only thing my controller card runs is the harddrive. I have ran my burner to the primarymaster drive as a master after removeing it from my bios. My controller card has its own bios. Then I left my dvd as a master on my secondary drive.Let me know if this sovles your proublem. I run a UltraATA 100 Siig card. If you do not have a card get one. You will find when you slave a burner off a dvd or cdrom some burners do not like this. The cable can be either. But running a burner off it not a good Ideal if its comeing from a controller card as I have mentioned. When a burner on a controller card it has a proublem of locking up. I hope this helps you out. If not try the hardware forum.;) I had the same problem you were haveing. That is why I bought a controller card. Plus you will also notice if the burner is not connected to any other hardware it runs much faster. Plus less errors!:)

[ryeguy640]

Storm 90, Thanks for the informative response, i'm not sure if I made my self clear enough, but my CD-burner is not on a controller card. All my devices are running of the Motherboards IDE Channels. So my Hard Drive in on Primary Master, CD-Burner on Secondary Master and DVD on Secondary Slave. So basically what I should do is get a Controller card, put my Hard Drive on that, and have my Burner on Primary Master and DVD on Secondary Master. Will that affect the performance of my hard drive at all, having it on the controller card? And which controller card in your opnion would be the best to get. Again, thanks for the response.

[Storm90]

It will not affect your performance at all. Most of the time if its a good card you will see a little increase in speed. You can go with a Promise Card or SIIG ULTRA ATA 100. I pefer this card over performance It cost a little more. But is easier to setup. The adaptic controller cards are nice to. Just check some of the web site like www.egghead.com and also try a bestbuy if there is one around you. They have them at low price , Plus Office max and Staples. I can not think of any other web site's at this time. So if you know of any try some of them and see who gives you the best price for a good card. All three I have listed are nice cards.:) Plus after you have got this card I think you will agre with me. Your burner will run better and your hardrive will be fine. Over all the system runs better. Due to you are not pulling down any of your hardware.;)

[onetrueday]

Before you get a controller card, check your IRQ's and make sure you have one open. I put a promise ata66 controller card a while back and it was a total HEADACHE! There is no reason you couldnt run like this:
first channel
master-hard drive
slave DVD
second
master-burner

On almost all newer motherboards, they will run indepant. For example, the HD will still run at ata100 while the dvd runs at ata33. I know this for a fact because I have the following setup.
first
master ata100 HD
slave ata33 HD
second
master burner
slave CDrom

The ata100 runs at 100, so you should have no problem running the HD and DVD together. Plus, you'll be able to copy cd's easily. BTW, I am able to copy cd's very easily. The myth that you cant put a cdrom and burner together doesnt hold true for a fast computer... andI only have a duron 800.


When I put that promise it, it put my nic and my promise together. It really screwed things up becuase I have a cable modem!

[ryeguy640]

I checked my IRQ's in Device Manager and after IRQ 5, it only says: ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering. Does that mean its free? I also have a cable modem, and I don't want to run into problems. How do I know which PCI Slot uses IRQ 5?

[onetrueday]

My Irq #5 was free until I put a soundcard there. So, yes it is free.

[ryeguy640]

I just installed a SIIG UltraATA 100 PCI Contoller in my Motherboard. I wanted to setup my system with my Hard Drive runinng off the controller, my DVD on the Motherboard Primary Master and my Cd-Burner on my Secondary Master. I booted up and went directly into the Motherboards bios and removed the Hard Drive and set the CD-Roms correctly. After restarting, the computer recognizes the 2 CD-Roms, but does not recognize the Hard Drive. In the SIIG Contoller Card Manual, it says that I should see the bios for the card come up, which I didn't. They said to try different PCI Slots, I tried 4 different ones and all didn't work. When I boot up the computer it just ends at the black screen saying System Boot Up Error, Replace System Diskette etc. I'm kind getting frustrated cause a lot of people on this board told me to do this and how easy it was. I checked all the jumpers twice, so they are fine. I'm using the Asus Cusl2 MD, running Windows 98SE. Thanks

[downhill]

Yeah those controller cards can sometimes be a hassle.

Go to the web site of your controller card. Sorry I can't help you with the URL. Look through their faq's. I had problems with my Promise. Turns out it didn't want to play with my Western Digital drives. There was a simple fix. Yeah that should have been in the manual but it wasn't.

Somtimes these things can be quite a hassle, be patient and keep trying things out. Get ahold of your controller card company to see what they suggest if you can't find anyting on their site. The fact that you can't seem to be able to see their bios, suggests that maybe there's a setting you may have overlooked you your bios or something not too hard to fix. (fingers crossed)

Still, I can't see why you can't get the original configuration to work for you.

You might try this.

Hard drive on Primary Master with DVD slaved.
Burner on the secondary.

Maybe not the best but I'll bet it works.