CD burner crawls when writing files from second hard drive to CD

[Tek7 (Legacy)]

Ugh. My super-speedy CD burner hasn't seemed so speedy lately.

I opened Nero and clicked "More," then "Configure," then the "Cache" tab, and then I clicked "Test all drive speeds." Nero clocked my primary hard drive, which I use for all my programs and games, at ~45MB/s. It clocked my secondary hard drive, which I use for storing media and CD images, at ~1.2MB. No wonder it takes five minutes to burn a CD.

I also analyzed the drive with Disk Defragmenter. While the drive could use a good defrag, I don't think it's nearly severe enough to cause this slow down.

THEN I looked at the Primary IDE channel in my hardware settings. Turns out my second hard drive is running in PIO mode while my primary hard drive, CD burner, and DVD drive are running in Ultra DMA mode.

So, here are my questions: Is it possible to get two hard drives on the same IDE cable to run in Ultra DMA mode, or can only the primary drive do so? If it is possible to get both hard drives running in Ultra DMA mode, how do I configure them to do so? If it's not possible to get both hard drives in Ultra DMA mode while on the same IDE cable, is it possible to re-wire my drives (say, put the primary HDD and the CD burner on one IDE cable and the secondary HDD and the DVD drive on another) to get both hard drives in Ultra DMA mode?

Blar. I just want to burn anime to CD as quickly as I used to. ;_; I've got about 15 gigs I need to archive...

EDIT: I am using a 52X CDR/W drive and 52X CD-Rs.

 

[Tek7 (Legacy)]

UPDATE: I uninstalled the driver for the Primary IDE channel and rebooted. The system now reports that all devices are running in Ultra DMA mode. To confirm this, I burned one CD with files from C drive and one CD with files from D drive. Both burns took approximately 2:41. Everything's good to go!

EDIT: The only reason I'm leaving this thread up is to provide help for anyone with similar problems and adequate google-fu (which is like kung-fu but slightly less violent).

 

[SilverSand]

Just a quick note.... If you have an older hard drive, turning on UDMA can fry the drive... The only reason I'm posting this, is in the slite case someone puts and old 4.7gig drive in there computer as an extra hard drive.

 

[Tek7@Work]

If you have an older hard drive, turning on UDMA can fry the drive

It's all good. Both my drives are (relatively) new Western Digital drives with 8MB cache. My primary HDD is a 100GB drive; my secondary is a 200GB drive.

 

[Bowser]

It's all good. Both my drives are (relatively) new Western Digital drives with 8MB cache. My primary HDD is a 100GB drive; my secondary is a 200GB drive.

Wow... what do you do with all of that space? I have a 40 gig hd that I use for all my games, music, videos, pictures, and websites; and I still have about 15 gigs worth of free space. I've considered getting a new drive...but at the moment I don't really have a need for one, nor do I have enough money to get one.

 

[Avesther]

Wow... what do you do with all of that space? I have a 40 gig hd that I use for all my games, music, videos, pictures, and websites; and I still have about 15 gigs worth of free space. I've considered getting a new drive...but at the moment I don't really have a need for one, nor do I have enough money to get one.

I need to learn your effeciency. I have an 80g that is over 50% full used for all apps and a 160g about 50% full used for all my multimedia content.

 

[Bowser]

I need to learn your effeciency. I have an 80g that is over 50% full used for all apps and a 160g about 50% full used for all my multimedia content.

Stop burning your DVDs to your computer, you nut!

 

[Tek7 (Legacy)]

Wow... what do you do with all of that space?

Lots and lots of time on AnimeSuki. Oh, and download archives. And a relatively large number of MP3s. And CD images.

 

[Atown]

its simple: its jeolous of ur wife and wants more attention . are u able to upgrade to SATA? might help

 

[Avesther]

Anime? ANIME? You litter your Hard drives with A N I M E!!!

No wonder your computer chocks....



</me begins to wonder if anybody noticed that I am not a big anime fan >

 

[SilverSand]

Can you post a link to this udma frying older drives? I have a two linux servers with 3 4.3's running udma without an issue. I have never seen a drive fial due to enabling UDMA...of course I have never forced UDMA when the bios said it was a pio drive.

I don't know where to look for a link... but magazines use to warn users about forcing UDMA on old drives that may not be compatible. I've never witnessed this, but I've always been cautions about old drives. 'Fry' may have been the wrong word.... I don't remember if forcing a drive will fry it or just cuase errors and data loss.

 

[Tek7 (Legacy)]

are u able to upgrade to SATA? might help

Nope. When Giga-byte designed the 7VAX, SATA wasn't available yet (or was, but only on more expensive boards).

But, I fixed the problem and am burning CDs at top speed again. ^^

 

[Tek7 (Legacy)]

Anime? ANIME? You litter your Hard drives with A N I M E!!!

Hm. I won't go off on a rant defending my love of anime, as I've been known to do.

But, I will say this: Automatically dismissing all anime as awful is the same as saying all music from a particular nation is terrible. Animation is an art form. A Japanese citizen judging all American music based on Britney Spears and 50 Cent (God forbid) is no different from an American citizen judging all anime based on Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh.