CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD-ROM allocation

[Charles]

CD-ROM: Sony 48X.

CD-RW: Plextor 12/10/32A.

DVD-ROM: Lite-On 16X.

I need to allocatel these 3 drives between 2 computers. Celeron 1.2 and PIII-700. Each computer will have 1 hard drive. For $20 I could also buy another CD-ROM although my original idea was to put the CD-ROM in the PIII and the CD-RW and DVD-ROM in the Celeron 1.2.

Can I burn CD's from DVD-ROM to CD-RW on the fly? Or should I get a CD-ROM for the PIII and keep all the other drives with the Celeron 1.2?

Which drive it's better to keep on it's own cable, DVD or CD-RW?

What if I have all 3 drives + hard drive and a separate ATA 100 drive card? How would you allocate drives then?

[RJ]

Info: A DVD-ROM drive does read CDs as well.
That means: No separate CD-ROM drive necessary

So I'd keep it out of the PC and connect DVD-ROM and CD-RW together, so the hard drive is anlone on its channel.

If you have a separate controller card then I'd connect the hard drive there and the optical drives to the mainboard, each one alone as master.

RJ

[Charles]

"If you have a separate controller card then I'd connect the hard drive there "

That wouldn't make it slower than connecting it to the primary as master on motherboard?

[RJ]

No, the PCI bus can handle that without problems. Speed problem only occurs with Serial ATA, not parallel ATA.

In fact, the controller cards are specifically designed for hard drives and some don't even like optical drives there. So if you have one, connect hard drives there and optical drives to the board.

RJ

[Charles]

The card it's ATA100 and has a floppy disk. What would be the way to use it with the hard drive provided it's a clean install and the hard drive it new.

[RJ]

Umm, I'm not sure that I really understand what you mean.

You need to jumper the hard drive to cable select. Connect it to the black connection, and the blue connection goes to the card itself.

And then just install the OS on it.

RJ

[Charles]

How is the card going to work if there is no OS or drivers for it in the new hard drive??

[tyoung]

May not even boot, depends on motherboard and bios. Most of the expansion cards in my experience are better suited for secondary hard drives and optical drives not primary source drives.

[RJ]

For Win9x it doesn't matter, you install the drivers afterwards.
For WinNT/2K/XP the driver should already be included. If not, then you will need a driver floppy (yes, unfortunately Windows NT/2K/XP are so unflexible when it comes to this :( ), Windows will ask you to insert it when needed.

RJ

[Charles]

Got it. Thanks.

[kilgoretrout]

Better RTFM for that controller card. As I recall for my Promise Ultra 100, for win 2000 you could not connect it to the controller until after you installed the driver for the controller with the drive connected to the onboard existing hard drive controller.

[glc]

If you are starting from scratch with a controller card and 2K/XP, all you need is the driver on floppy, setup will prompt you to press F6 to install an additional mass storage device driver, and it will then ask for the floppy.

If you don't need DVD or CD burning support in the 700, just put the DVD and burner in the 1.2 and the CD drive in the 700. You won't need a card. If you are going to be doing a lot of "on the fly" copying, slave the DVD or the burner to the hard drive.

[Charles]

Thanks again.