Bill,

I too have a dual drive, dual CD system.

My Acer manual instructed me to put the CD-R as the master on the secondary
channel and the CD-RW as slave on the secondary channel.  This setup has
worked just fine for me.

My CD-R is an 8x and the burner is a 4x4x32.  I've only copied two disks
over the 5+ months that I have had it and they both came out fine.

Jim Meagher
=====
Micro Solutions Consulting        Member of The HTML Writers Guild
http://www.ezy.net/~microsol     International Webmasters Association
410-543-8996                MS Site Builder Network - Level 2 member
=====
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Nussbaumer <[log in to unmask]>

> Hi all,
>
> I'm about to purchase a CD-R/RW and wanted a little clarification and
> information.  First, while I don't exclude the possibility of wanting to
> make direct CD-ROM to CD-R burns (the time will surely come), my main
focus
> in this purchase is for a reliable backup and archive removable media
> solution.  This would mean that I'll primarily use it for backing up
> e-mail, saved games, finance files, documents and the like on a regular
> basis and also archiving multimedia files like mp3's and pictures on a
less
> regular basis.
>
> I provide this information because this means that my PRIMARY use will be
> to transfer files between hard drives and CD-R/RW rather than from CD-ROM
> to CD-R/RW. (But I would like both to work reliably)
>
> While researching the issues surrounding CD re-writable technology an old
> archived PC-Build post led me to an article that claimed the following:
>
> <From: http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/cd-rw/intro3.html>
> To minimize the possibility of buffer underruns, you should not connect
the
> recorder to the same IDE-channel as your intended source; IDE is
> notoriously poor at multitasking on a single channel. Usually, the hard
> disk is connected to the primary IDE channel and the CD-ROM drive is
hooked
> to the secondary IDE channel.
>
> My questions are these.
>
> Given my Abit BH6 motherboard has 2 EIDE controllers on-board, I need to
> use all available positions with 2 Hard Drives, and both the CD-ROM and
> CD/RW.  On which channels should I position each drive to address a
primary
> concern of reliability and a secondary concern of speed?
>
> Is the above statement incorrect or outdated? The article was written
> almost 2 years ago and I've found conflicting opinions and information
> during my research so now I'm confused.
>
> Cost is a consideration, but, I'd rather spend more money to buy a quality
> product than less money to buy a door stop.  Does anyone see the need to
> invest in a SCSI solution (plus an add on SCSI card) or is EIDE going to
be
> reliable enough for my needs under Windows98?
>
> Relevant System Specs:
>
> Celeron 300A O/c'd to 450MHz on an Abit BH6
> 128 MB PC100
> 8.4 G WD 5400 rpm UMDA33 drive
> Standard HI-Val EIDE 40X CD-ROM
> Windows98 (Although smoething that works under Linux is a bonus)
>
> Adding on additional hard drive X GB at 7200 rpm ATA/66 (Choked back to
> ATA/33 I guess)
>
> TIA,
>
> Bill Nussbaumer
>
>             Do you want to signoff PCBUILD or just change to
>                     Digest mode - visit our web site:
>                     http://nospin.com/pc/pcbuild.html
>

            Do you want to signoff PCBUILD or just change to
                    Digest mode - visit our web site:
                    http://nospin.com/pc/pcbuild.html