Installing 3 drives

jerboa · April 5th, 2003, 09:36 PM

Hi, I'm a newbie here looking for help on installing multiple drives.

I have a Dell Dimension XPS T700r running Windows 98. From the factory the computer has a CD/DVD drive and a ZIP drive. I recently purchased a Plextor PX-W4824TA CD-RW drive which I tried to install today. It's my desire to retain all three drives.

The secondary IDE cable had two plugs, one going to the CD/DVD and the other going to the ZIP drive. Both were jumpered to CableSelect (CS). I bought a 40 pin IDE cable connector, F/M/F and plugged it into the new cable supplied with the Plexwriter. I attached the end of the secondary Ide cable to the Plexwriter and set the jumper at Master. I attached the splitter cable to the other plug on the secondary IDE and routed to the CD/DVD and the ZIP drive. Both are jumpered at CS. When I boot up the computer, none of the drives are recognized. Plextor says their cable will not work with CS configurations.

How can I get these three drives working?? Do I need a new CSEL cable for three drives with all devices set at CS? Should I change the settings on the ZIP and CD/DVD from CS to slave?

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. jerboa

Micro Bean · April 5th, 2003, 09:43 PM

Your IDE can only control 2 drives. SO what you might have to do and connect the ZIp drive with your Hard drive and make that a Slave drive and the CD-RW and DVD on the other IDE one as master and One as Slave.

jerboa · April 5th, 2003, 11:14 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Micro Bean
Your IDE can only control 2 drives. SO what you might have to do and connect the ZIp drive with your Hard drive and make that a Slave drive and the CD-RW and DVD on the other IDE one as master and One as Slave.

Dell Tech Support tells me there is no problem supporting three drives. They just won't tell me how to do it. jerboa.

MDS · April 5th, 2003, 11:28 PM

Just place your Hard drive as master primary, Zip slave primary, CD RW as master secondary, and DVD rom as slave secondary. Make sure you have the jumpers set correctly on the drives and the master on the end of the cable slave in the center of the cable.

pickel · April 5th, 2003, 11:31 PM

Micro Bean is correct about the IDE channels, however I would put the DvD drive as slave to the hard drive on channel one . And install the CDRW as master on the secondary with the zip drive as slave. This will give the best data transfer from the DVD to the CDRW.

Tomteriffic · April 5th, 2003, 11:59 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by pickel
Micro Bean is correct about the IDE channels, however I would put the DvD drive as slave to the hard drive on channel one . And install the CDRW as master on the secondary with the zip drive as slave. This will give the best data transfer from the DVD to the CDRW.

I'd go that way too. Besides, zips are notorious for fouling up entire IDE chains, and they really seem to prefer being the secondary slave. Having the CDRW as the secondary master has worked the most consistently for me, regardless of the drive brand.

pickel · April 6th, 2003, 12:48 AM

I use an external zip drive ( USB ) just for that reason.

Brangwen · April 6th, 2003, 01:32 AM

I must be following pickel around.

Quote:

I use an external zip drive ( USB ) just for that reason.

I agree. I have also noticed that I very rarely use my Zip anymore. I have not plugged it back in since a recent OS clean install.

Brangwen

PS: My Zip is a USB.

jerboa · April 6th, 2003, 02:24 PM

Thanks to the great advice here, I'm happy to say all three drives are now up and running. I learned that the Dell requires the use of CS cable to self configure. For cable length reasons I wound up chaining the ZIP with the HD on the IDE primary and the CD/DVD and the CD-RW on the IDE secondary. Jumpers on all items were set to CS (cable select).

Everything is now functioning as expected.

Thanks again for all of your assistance!!!

jerboa

pickel · April 7th, 2003, 10:47 AM

Great !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!