2 CD drives in one computer

[ke4vbg]

I just bought a CDRW drive for my IBM 2136-e40 running windows 95 . Can i keep my old CD rom drive in it to have 2 drives . Is there anywhere i can get the info to make them both work such as HOW TO sites. I know one is set as Master and one Slave . Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks, Doug

[Telexen]

Just set one to master and one to slave...in your computer take the cable the old cdrom was already connected to, and plug in the drive you set to Master in the end connector, and the slave in the middle one.

Then just make sure your system sees them both...which will include detecting it in your BIOS on your system (since it's older)

[ke4vbg]

Thanks , sounds simple ,maybe even I can try that.

[PartsMan]

Both of my CDs are set as slaves and connected to different cables. I understand that data transfer from primary to secondary IDE components (master or slave) is far superior than from master to slave on the same cable.

[jmebonner]

That's correct as long as you have the ide channels available. Otherwise, the data is fighting for the cable's bandwidth whereas if you're on two separate cables it isn't. I had a 48x burner that was only burning about 32 until I put it on a different cable and it helped quite a bit.

[CraigK]

so you're saying instead of me having my cd-rw as master and dvd-rom as slave on the same cable (like it is now), i should move my dvd to slave on the same cable as my hdd? this really only helps if your copying from one CD to another, right?

It's fine the way it is.

By putting the ATAPI device on the same channel as the HDD's, you'll actually decrease performance.

Just leave it as is.