Two optical drives on same cable?

[Theophylact]

I seem to remember there could be problems with that. Any details or explanations?

I'm reconfiguring an older homebrew, and the cables would be less of a mess if the CD-RW and the DVD, whiich sit in the top two bays, could be on the same ATA cable, and the HDD and Zip on the other.

[ShawnD1]

A problem will arise if the jumpers on each of the optical drives do not agree with each other. For example, if both drives are set to master, one of them will obviously not work. Even cable select will have problems at times.

If you set the jumpers on the master drive to master and the jumpers on the slave drive to slave, you won't have a problem. Remember that master connects at the end of the cable, and slave connects in the middle.

I have a similar setup to what you are describing. I have a DVD writer as master and CD writer as slave.

[Bill in SD, CA]

I remember some "older" systems had problems with two optical drives on the same channel.

Problem is I don't remember how old.

Bill

[Siliconjunkie]

One catch is if you put a reader and a burner on the same cable. IDE cannot read and write at the same time on the same channel. So, if you try to copy a disc you can run into problems.

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by Siliconjunkie
One catch is if you put a reader and a burner on the same cable. IDE cannot read and write at the same time on the same channel. So, if you try to copy a disc you can run into problems.

I've never had a problem with that. An old computer of mine had an HP CD writer and some generic CD drive on the same IDE. With that setup, I was able to copy media from one CD to the other.

[Siliconjunkie]

Thats why the "can" is in there. Doesn't happen to everyone, but my first burner made lots of coasters before I figured this out.

[skuz]

Yes you can have problems reading/burning on the same cable because, as mentioned, it can't be done at the same time. However, I have both my DVD rom and CDRW on the same cable and avoid the problem by using a slower writing speed.

[DallasDon]

Another problem arises with the cable select jumbers.

Both drives must be set to cable select, if you use it, AND you need the proper 40 pin (ribbon) cable. The 80 wire rounded cables seem to cause problems with cable select.

Best to avoid the cable select jumpers, IMO<

[dr_roberts49]

I have a DVD player and a DVD burner on the same cable as secondary master and slave. I have 2 physical hard drives on the same cable as primary master and slave. No problems. Been using this configuration on my hard drives on every system I've built since 1994. Started connecting my optical drives this way since 1998 when I bought my 1st CD burner. Just get your jumpers configured correctly. I was taught to never connect your optical drives and your hard drives on the same cable. It's never failed me so far, or maybe I'm just lucky

Robert

[john_phoenix]

There should be no problems connecting the drives as stated if the jumpers are set to master and slave accordingly. The only thing you will not be able to do is copy CD's on the fly, so change this option in your burning software.