Conflicts between drives on same IDE cable

I only have two IDE slots on my cheezy Dell 2400 and I have an application that calls for two dives, but when I put my DVD RW in position 1 on one of the cables, it won't play movies (they hang up off and on), even when the HD in position 0 isn't doing anything visible. If two drives are on the same cable, is the MoBo intermittantly accessing both, even if you aren't using one?

If so, is there any way to disable this, electronically or physically, without actually swapping drives back and forth off the cable so each can be in the master position? Can you put them both on and use device manager to install/uninstall as needed? Am I just missing something?

I know it's not the drive itself because it works fine by itself in position 0.

Thanks much,
Dave

 

You have to set one as master and one as slave. You cannot set them both as master drives. Which is most likely why you are having problems.

Just adjust the jumper in the back and set one to slave and you'll be fine. (BTW, it's standard to have only 2 IDE slots on a motherboard)

 

Yea, even with it set as slave or cable select, it still does this. I had it set like that to begin with. It only stops doing it if I set it as master and have it on its own cable.

So am I gathering that this is not a common problem? Why would my drive act like this? It's a good drive--a new Sony double layer. It was loading data okay on the shared cable (I copied some files to the drive on the same cable and they all seem fine). Just can't deal with movies.

Any suggestions on what to do next?

Does anyone know if the MoBo is supposed to ignore a drive if it's not active, or is there minimal routine communication of some kind between the MoBo and a drive even if it isn't doing anything?

 

Not sure I can help but I think it would be good if we had a little more info. You say you have two IDE slots/controllers -- is there anything plugged into the second controller? How many total drives (HD's and CD or DVD drive, Zip drives etc) do you have hooked up and to which controllers?

And how old is the Dell 2400? I'm thinking if it's an older motherboard and BIOS it just may not fully support a DVD burner drive.