Two devices (CD-ROM and CD-RW) on one IDE port

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Two devices (CD-ROM and CD-RW) on one IDE port

2003-02-16 10:44:23

Hi!
Feurio! Says:

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Warning: You're using two IDE-devices (G: [1, 0, 0] LITE-ON - LTR-48246S and H: [1, 1, 0] TEAC - CD-540E), that are connected to the same IDE-port (if this is not the case, you can ignore this message).

THIS CAN CAUSE PROBLEMS! PARTICULARY WHEN USING TWO IDE-CD-WRITERS AT THE SAME IDE-PORT WILL HARDLY WORK!

A fundamental problem of the IDE-bus is that the bus is not capable of "multi-tasking", i.e. if one device is busy handling a command, the bus is locked until the device has finished the command - even if no data is being transmitted!
(The IDE-BUS has no "DISCONNECT"!)
In particular this means that the bus is locked while writing the leadin/leadout.
This can cause the following problems when a writer is connected to the IDE-bus with other devices:

- Writer is connected with another writer:
Recording with both writers at the same time is normally not possible, since both writers block each other. If one writer is busy with handling a recording command, the other is blocked at that time!

- Writer is connected with a CD-Rom:
While writing you can have problems accessing the CD-Rom; error-free grabbing is often not possible then. In particular "on-the-fly" copies are often not possible.
Even "ejecting" the CD-Rom can cause a buffer-underrun of the writer as the CD-Rom locks the bus while ejecting for a longer time, so that the writer receives no data in that time.

These problems stated here need not occur: Some writer avoid these fundamental problems of the IDE-bus by "cutting" some commands, that would take "too much" time with a special code; this code tells Feurio! that it should "ask" again in a while whether the command has finished - thus releasing the bus.

In principle we strongly recommend connecting the writer as a single device to one IDE-port, if possible!

Particulary, in our experience writing to two writers connected to one port does NOT work in most cases!

If you want to work with more than one writer at the same time, we STRONGLY recommend to use SCSI-CD-Writers!

So, what should I do? Is it really so dangerous? Should I connect my CD-RW to the same IDE port with the HDD? Or everything will be OK?
P.S.: and by the way, how to tune Feurio! up? Are there any guides?

Two devices (CD-ROM and CD-RW) on one IDE port

Reply #1 – 2003-02-16 13:44:28

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So, what should I do? Is it really so dangerous?

Just avoid using CD-ROM while recording disc with CD-RW...

Two devices (CD-ROM and CD-RW) on one IDE port

Reply #2 – 2003-02-16 15:07:23

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So, what should I do? Is it really so dangerous?

Just avoid using CD-ROM while recording disc with CD-RW...

That is 1 way around the problem.

If you rip with your cdrom to your harddrive and then copy to cdr from the harddrive, you will have no problem!

However, if you copy directly from cd to cd then you will have a problem as both drivers are sharing the same cable. This means that the dataspeed will half and could cause cache problems as the cdrom is not able to keep up with the cdr or vise versa!

In the ideal word you would have a separate connection for each drive, but as we are not in such a world, you would do the following.

IDE0 = set harddrive as master and cdrom as slave
IDE1 = set cdrw and master on its own cable

I think thats what I have done?

Two devices (CD-ROM and CD-RW) on one IDE port

Reply #3 – 2003-02-16 16:06:44

But doesn't that mean the HD speeds will drop hugely, especially when the cd drive and hd are used at the same time? Keep me posted on this one, it's been one of my issues for some time too

Two devices (CD-ROM and CD-RW) on one IDE port

Reply #4 – 2003-02-16 16:17:29

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So, what should I do? Is it really so dangerous? Should I connect my CD-RW to the same IDE port with the HDD? Or everything will be OK?
P.S.: and by the way, how to tune Feurio! up? Are there any guides?

It's not dangerous.
It simply could be slower, but no problem with quality or bugs.
You can try and see if the performance is enough.
I've just put an LG48x with a Quantum HDD (Via KT133A), and the performance is perfect. You can see it ripping with Feurio. If the reading buffer doesn't fill up, then the bus isn't overloaded. (In Program Parameters -> Program Parameters you can change the settings of that reading buffer).
I've also put another LG48x in another mainboard (Via KT133), and the buffer fills up a lot of times... This is not a problem, but means that the max performance is reached... With old drives this could mean problems with jitter if the drive has to stop, but nowadays with "Accurate Stream" drives this is not a problem.

Some tips for Feurio:
There are 2 settings I change when I install Feurio (it remembers the last settings used):
- "Do not insert pauses between tracks - round track markers" in project Settings.

and disable "kill digital silence at the start/end of file".

This way you will always have exact copies of the original CD even making compilations (a project) with Feurio CD-Manager.
The first allows continous music with WAV files that aren't cut in sector boundaries (Nero can't do it). It doesn't work with MP3 because these files always have silence at the end, and you have to remove it manually (Track Editor is great for this task).

Another setting is reporting C2 errors when ripping. You need a reader/writer able to do this (others are able but fail when index marks -subchannels- are read at the same time). Do it in Program Parameters -> Special Parameters -> C2-error-message and enable only the first box. This way, if there are no errors reported after extracting you know DAE was perfect.

Disable index marks if you have problems with them. They're not very necessary...

PS: The Via 686B southbridge bug happens when transferring from one controller to another. That's why I put those LG with the hard disk. In one of those computers the system broke down when ripping in the second IDE controller.

That message in Feurio is from 1998 or 1999 when slow Pentium computers had more more problems with all those IDE transfer. Nowadays, this is still true, but the effects are much less dramatic because of the power of the computers.

Two devices (CD-ROM and CD-RW) on one IDE port

Reply #5 – 2003-02-16 16:31:09

Someone correct me if im wrong! I think the purpose of master and slave is that the master gets more priority. If you are using the CDDrive and the HD at the same time, the HD gets priority if HD is master on IDE0 and CDDrive is slave on IDE0. If anything does slowdown its going to be the CDDrive.

I am quite sure most people in this forum do the following when backingup audio files

1. extract audio from CD to HD
2. process audio (encode)
3. copy to CD from HD

If you use these steps the following configuration would be best:

Primary IDE: hard drive as Master (Dual)
Secondary IDE: CDRW drive as Master (Dual)
Secondary IDE: CD drive as Slave (Dual)

However, if you like copying CD to CD on the fly then the following configuration would be best:

Primary IDE: hard drive as Master (Dual)
Primary IDE: CD drive as Slave (Dual)
Secondary IDE: CDRW drive 1 as Master (Dual)

I just checked my configuration which works perfectly with NERO

Primary IDE: hard drive 1 as Master (Dual)
Primary IDE: hard drive 2 as Slave (Dual)
Secondary IDE: CDRW drive 1 as Master (Dual)
Secondary IDE: CD/DVD drive 2 as Slave (Dual)

I very rarely do CD to CD (on the fly) copying!

This is only my opinion, which could be completely incorrect

Two devices (CD-ROM and CD-RW) on one IDE port

Reply #6 – 2003-02-16 18:32:29

Thanks to all! Special thanks to minix for tips for Feurio! You know, I am quite knew to all that CD-R/RW stuff, that's why I have a lot of questions... and problems. Long live to hydrogen community, you are so great! (Sory for offtop).

I do nothing on the fly, just standart 3 steps... So the problem is solved.

Two devices (CD-ROM and CD-RW) on one IDE port

Reply #7 – 2003-02-17 07:08:35

As far as I know, any devices on an IDE channel will only run as fast as the slowest device. Therefore, if you put a cd-rom and HDD on the same channel, the HDD can only transer at ata-33 (UDMA33) speeds.

Two devices (CD-ROM and CD-RW) on one IDE port

Reply #8 – 2003-02-17 08:10:26

I have both my DVD player and cd recorder at secondary IDE channel, and can do on-the-fly copies of cds from the DVD to the recorder at 8x, without problems.

Two devices (CD-ROM and CD-RW) on one IDE port

Reply #9 – 2003-02-17 11:18:44

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As far as I know, any devices on an IDE channel will only run as fast as the slowest device. Therefore, if you put a cd-rom and HDD on the same channel, the HDD can only transer at ata-33 (UDMA33) speeds.

That is why I have HDs on a separate IDE channel from ODs (OD = Optical Drive)

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I have both my DVD player and cd recorder at secondary IDE channel, and can do on-the-fly copies of cds from the DVD to the recorder at 8x, without problems.

If you use the following configuration, you should notice a speed increase (Theoretically)

Primary IDE: hard drive as Master (Dual)
Primary IDE: CD drive as Slave (Dual)
Secondary IDE: CDRW drive 1 as Master (Dual)

Two devices (CD-ROM and CD-RW) on one IDE port

Reply #10 – 2003-02-17 11:46:45

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As far as I know, any devices on an IDE channel will only run as fast as the slowest device.

I read somewhere that it was the case with IDE, not E-IDE (that replaced IDE since the early 90's), but I'm not sure.

I tested it long ago, but my file was too small to draw a definitive conclusion. It seemed to be written (from the RAM) at about 110 % of the speed of the protocol used by the CD ROM drive (17 MB /s and 66 MB/s for the hard drive, I think)

Two devices (CD-ROM and CD-RW) on one IDE port

Reply #11 – 2003-02-17 11:54:45

IMHO, the best thing to do is go and buy yourself a PCI IDE expansion card. They normally cost between $25-$35 and will allow you to connect 2-4 additional IDE drives. This way all your drives can be set to master, to get and maximum out of each and every drive!

Two devices (CD-ROM and CD-RW) on one IDE port

Reply #12 – 2003-02-17 12:31:36

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As far as I know, any devices on an IDE channel will only run as fast as the slowest device. Therefore, if you put a cd-rom and HDD on the same channel, the HDD can only transer at ata-33 (UDMA33) speeds.

Well, I think that it depends on chipset and drives.
That was said a long time ago when UDMA 33 and 66 appeared, but I think that today that's not case anymore.
I've put those LGs along with the hard disk and Windows XP showed that HDD was working in UltraDMA mode 5 and LG 48x in UltraDMA mode 2. And as I said, in one of those computers the drives weren't blocking each other to fill the reading buffer...

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IMHO, the best thing to do is go and buy yourself a PCI IDE expansion card.

A lot of those PCI adapters don't support CDROM drives theorically... Is there any model that officially supports them?

Two devices (CD-ROM and CD-RW) on one IDE port

Reply #13 – 2003-02-17 12:50:57

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A lot of those PCI adapters don't support CDROM drives theorically... Is there any model that officially supports them?

Absolutely!

Here's 1 example

If you do get 1 of these cards, heres the best setup:

Main HD on Motherboard IDE0
Main OD on Motherboard IDE1
Second HD on ControllerCard
Second OD on ControllerCard

I think it is best to have the 2 most used drives connected directly to the MB, instead of getting them to go through the ControllerCard

Two devices (CD-ROM and CD-RW) on one IDE port

Reply #14 – 2003-02-18 05:23:52

I have a SIIG ATA 133 PCI card sitting in a box somewhere. It more than doubled my boot time. Hey, maybe someday they'll release a bios update for the card, but until then, it was the biggest waste of $50

Two devices (CD-ROM and CD-RW) on one IDE port

Reply #15 – 2003-02-18 08:34:18

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I have a SIIG ATA 133 PCI card sitting in a box somewhere. It more than doubled my boot time. Hey, maybe someday they'll release a bios update for the card, but until then, it was the biggest waste of $50

If you have your main HD on the controller card, that is why it is slower. This is why I suggested that all main HDs should be connected directly to the motherboard!

If it is already connected directly to the motherboard then all I can say is That is strange!

Two devices (CD-ROM and CD-RW) on one IDE port

Reply #16 – 2005-03-25 00:18:37

I know this thread is a bit dated
IMI will this card (pci) work on a non raid board specifically a leadtek k7ncr18d pro

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