master / slave problems

[itai_regev]

hello,
recently i bought a new yamah cdrw to replace my old hp one,
when i connected the new drive, the new cdrw has ruined all the blank cds i tried to write on, i sent it to the lab but they burned with no problems,
coming back home , i tried to connect it as a master on ide2 and left only one hd as master on the first ide - then it worked great .
but i cant use my computer when only these items are connected, so i tried to connect it as slave with the same hd, and connected on the second ide another hd as master and cd as slave,
the burner couldnt write again...
any suggestions how to connect it?
thanks

[dodecahedron]

hi Itai and welcome to CDRLabs forums.
BTW, are you by any chance from Israel ?

first:
cabling/jumpers.
did you configure the jumpers correctly?
when connecting the CD-RW drive as Slave to the HD on IDE1 did you jumper the drive as Slave?
make sure nothing is Cable Select.
are you sure the cables or OK? maybe try exchanging the cable.

second:
unless you intend to do a lot of on-the-fly copying from the CD-ROM drive, i recommend you place both HDs on IDE1, the CD-RW drive as master on IDE2 and the CD-ROM as slave on IDE2.
try this configuration and see if it works.
if it is important for you to have the two optical drives on separate IDE channels, the maybe try switching them - place the CD-RW drive as the slave to the other HD on IDE2, and the CD-ROM as slave on IDE1.

third:
check and see if your drive's firmware is the most recent one, if not consider updating it. what drive is it BTW?
same goes for the motherboard's BIOS.

[itai_regev]

thank you very much for replying
here are my answers.
1. yes i am from israel , are you?
2. as for the connections, both hd are connected to the first ide now, and the yamaha cdrw-f1 is connected alone to the second ide and it works fine,
the problems are when connecting the cdrw with the cdrom on the same ide, or when connecting the cdrw to the first ide as slave and the second hd with the cd-rom, now i have a feeling thats the cd-rom is doing all the problems i dont how and why.
thanks , if you have any suggestions please do...
itai

[dodecahedron]

yes, well i gave a few suggestions in the previous post: jumpers, cables, firmwares (both for CD-RW and CD-ROM drives), BIOS.

actually sounds to me like the CD-RW drives is causing the problems, since you say the problems are either when it is with the CD-RW on the seoncdary IDE channel, or with the first HD on the Primary channel.

1. does everything work OK when you remove the CD-RW drive and install both HDs and the CD-ROM drive in various configurations (2 HDs on primary, CD-ROM alone on secondary; HD1 or HD2 with CD-ROM on one channel, other HD on other channel)?
if so then it must be the CD-RW.

2. you say you have problems when the CD-RW is slave to the HD1 on primary IDE channel. why not try connecting the CD-RW as a slave to HD2 on the secondary IDE channel with the CD-ROM slave to HD1 on primary (actually this is not a good idea if the CDROM drive does not support UDMA)? or maybe switch the HDs, put CD-RW as slave to HD2 on primary and CD-ROM with HD1 on secondary (yeah this might mean moving OS from HD1 to HD2).

3. try getting another optical drive from a friend and test with both HDs on primary, CDRW master on secondary and borrowed drive as slave on secondary. if this works then it is indeed the CD-ROM at fault.

(i'm from Israel too - see under my avatar!
i'm from Tel Aviv...where are you?)

good luck

[itai_regev]

thanks again, you are very quick,
i'll try these other configurations, but i have another small detail,
i got a cable with the cdrw (ide) but when trying to use it, it doesnt recognize anything connected to it.
maybe it rings a bell,
any how thank you very very very much.
itai - from yavne