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8934
July 18th, 2004 18:00
Adding An Optical Drive
Dimension XPS Gen 2
currently have 2 optical drives, two hard drives, and 1 standard floppy drive.
would like to add a 3rd optical drive..I have an empty bay, however, no vacant IDE port on the motherboard.
Is it possible to add the 3rd optical drive without removing one of the 2 existing?
Can a IDE port support 3 drives?..is there a type of 40 pin IDE ribbon cable that would support 1 master & 2 slaves?
TIA for any assistance anyone can provide.
vinny
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Skybird
10.9K Posts
0
July 18th, 2004 19:00
one of your open Serial ATA ports or 2) obtaining a PCI ATA
card and installing it to allow another pair of IDE devices to
be supported.
Vincenzo Illumi
3 Posts
0
July 25th, 2004 01:00
Thanks Skybird..........I chose your option two adding a PCI ATA Card (Star Tech Dual Channel ATA-133 PCI IDE Card) and I purchased a Plextor PX-712A DVD +/- R/RW CD-R/RW drive.
After installing both the card and the drive, I could not get the PC to acknowledge the new drive..........backtracking, and referring to the drive's user manual, I discovered that my PC's IDE configuration is Cable Select, and, according to the user manual, only a Cable Select Cable (CSEL IDE Cable) can be used in my system. I changed the jumpers on the new drive to Cable Select, but the drive still was not acknowledged...so I figured that it must be the cable. I checked with both COMPUSA and FRYES about such a cable and neither store was familiar.
Do I in fact actually need this CSEL IDE Cable?( I've checked online and apparently this cable is in the $25 to $30 range) Is there a work around?
TIA
Vinny
Vincenzo Illumi
3 Posts
0
July 25th, 2004 01:00
Thanks Skybird..........I chose your option two adding a PCI ATA Card (Star Tech Dual Channel ATA-133 PCI IDE Card) and I purchased a Plextor PX-712A DVD +/- R/RW CD-R/RW drive.
After installing both the card and the drive, I could not get the PC to acknowledge the new drive..........backtracking, and referring to the drive's user manual, I discovered that my PC's IDE configuration is Cable Select, and, according to the user manual, only a Cable Select Cable (CSEL IDE Cable) can be used in my system. I changed the jumpers on the new drive to Cable Select, but the drive still was not acknowledged...so I figured that it must be the cable. I checked with both COMPUSA and FRYES about such a cable and neither store was familiar.
Do I in fact actually need this CSEL IDE Cable?( I've checked online and apparently this cable is in the $25 to $30 range) Is there a work around?
TIA
Vinny
Skybird
10.9K Posts
0
July 25th, 2004 02:00
Hi Vinny,
You bought a great drive, the 712A. I have the 708A. I have it
in my system on the existing IDE channel as Cable Select using
the existing Dell IDE cable.
If you are using the cable that came with the drive, jumper your
new drive as Master and place it at the end of the new cable. If
you have two devices on the new cable, jumper the other as Slave.
You are real close to getting everything going and you are going
to love the 712A.