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tafontaine
4 Posts
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March 25th, 2004 11:00
installing 3rd drive?
i am currently with a 8100 p4 1.3 and have a cd-rom and cd-rw drives. i have an open bay and would like to add a dvd rw. it seems that i have a free grey eide ribbon (part of it is plugged into my hard drive though?) and also a free power connector (part is plugged into my cd-rw drive).
I tried using these and on startup my dell couldn't find my hard drive and wouldn't boot up windows. Do i have any other options or do i have to bag the cd-rom drive?
thanks for any input.
todd.
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Posted March 25th, 2004 12:00
Your best option in my opinion is to install a ATA Controller card in one of your free PCI slots. This will allow you to connect a hard drive and CD device to the controller card's IDE ports and then seperate the two other CD devices between the motherboard controller ports. The cost for adding a controller card is less than $40 and would improve the peformance of all the devices. The last thing you want to do is to have a hard drive and a CD device on the same ribbon cable.
509
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Posted March 25th, 2004 13:00
The most popular ATA Controller cards are Promise and Maxtor. Both of those will have two IDE ports. You will definately need some additional ribbon cables if you plan on seperating them all. Any computer store or Radio Shack will have them available. While at the store you might consider getting some plastic wire ties. They are very useful for bundling the ribbon cables together loosely so your machine will have better air circulation. There should be no reason to get a decoder card as all you are doing is adding some additional IDE ports. If the device currently works without a decoder card then there is no reason to get one.509
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Posted March 25th, 2004 16:00
Hi Todd,
Click on the CD/RW link in my post and scroll to Section 4. There you will find an article on the installation of the ATA/card in which Dale wrote I believe.
Take care
God, grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway,
the good fortune to run into the ones I do and the eyesight to tell the
difference.
509
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Posted March 25th, 2004 18:00
Jeff
You just jogged the ole memory on that one.
You know what they say..... when you get old the first thing to go is......
Message Edited by Majestic on 03-25-2004 02:18 PM
509
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Posted March 25th, 2004 19:00
Dale,
LOL...I can most definitely relate to the memory fading my friend, but you took a leave of absence for awhile though, so you have an excuse !!
Take care,
Jeff509
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Posted March 26th, 2004 11:00
thanks alot for all of your help guys, i have the drive up and running - sort of... i can play cds, but i guess i need to get some software before it recognizes or can play dvds. the drive is a nec and it was advertiseds as oem - without software. two quick questions - do i need a driver and can you recommend a dvd playing software?
i heard about nero and dvdx copy?
thanks for the input. again.
todd
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Posted March 26th, 2004 12:00
Todd
Jeff can best advise you on the best software to use with the DVD. I'm still in the dark ages and using the DVD software that came with my Dell. What you might do is check the DVD manufacturers web site. At lot of times they will have the programs available for download so the folks that get the plain box OEM versions can still have access to the needed software. I know this is true with OEM hard drives.
Jeff
While on was on my hiatus I didn't have to do much thinking..... the nurse brought me my pills on schedule.
tafontaine
4 Posts
509
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Posted March 25th, 2004 12:00
thanks alot for the idea majestic,
do all ATA controller cards come with only two IDE ports? And i guess i'll have to gt some more ide ribbon cable and then an MPEG video decoder card as well?
thanks for the word
todd