Calling Computer Guru's

  • Thread starter Thread starter dachay2tnr
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dachay2tnr

dachay2tnr

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I recently built a new PC. While everything seems to be functioning fine, I have some questions about the proper HDD controller connections.

My system has a 7200 RPM ATA100 20 Gig HDD, along with an older 4.5 gig HDD (speed unknown). It also has a CD-RW and a CD-ROM. The MOBO has a High Point Controller with ATA 100 support. Along with Primary and Secondary IDE controllers.

Right now I have the 20 Gig ATA 100 HDD connected as the Master on the High Pont Controller. I have the CD-RW connected as the master on the Primary IDE controller and the CD-ROM as the slave. Last, I have the old HDD setup as a slave on the secondary IDE Controller (even though there is no Master on that controller).

Everything seems to work with this configuration, but some occasional quirks are leading me to question the setup. Also the drive letter assignments are C: - Large HDD, D: - CD-RW, E: CD-ROM, F: Small HDD. It seems unusual that the CD's would be logically between the HDD's, but I'm guessing this is because I have them on the Primary IDE.

My first question is can I connect the old HDD as a slave on the High Point controller, or will this effect the speed of my 7200 RPM drive which is already on this controller (or will it not work at all from this controller)?

Also, would the CD's be better off on the secondary IDE controller? I notice that when booting, the system seems to take a long time to recognize the IDE Master (my CD-RW). I'm wondering if it would be faster if I had the HDD on the primary IDE (assuming it can't be used on the High Point).

Also it seems some programs do not recognize my CD-RW. For ex., I just downloaded a firmware update from the manufacturer, and when I tried to update the CD-RW the program told me that the drive was not found.

However, other programs work fine with it (EZ CD Creator, for ex.)

Sorry for the long post, but is there a preferred configuration for this equipment?
 
Elaborate on the other quirks.

I'd setup the 4.5GB (more than likely 5400RPM) as the primary master on the non-ATA 100 channel, your CD-ROM slaved to it, and your CD-RW as the secondary master. Install the operating system to the 4.5GB.

And put the ATA 100 20GB as the master on the highpoint channel(for audio data only). Select your boot device in BIOS accordingly.

But, I don't really see much wrong with the way you have it setup now, aside from the tweaks. What are the quirks?

I assume your using this for recording. Use your big fast drive for audio data, and your old drive for the OS. Dual boot if necessary.
 
Thanks for the reply, Emeric. The two main quirks were the one I already mentioned (the firmware update program won't recognize the fact that I have the CD-RW).

The only other one has to do with Wavelab. Wavelab also won't recognize my CD-RW. I had this same problem in my old system, but I fixed it by editing a wavelab file (cdr.txt) to add some information on my CD-RW. In the new system, the edits I made to the text file don't work anymore, and the drive isn't recognized. This, however, could have something to do with a switch to Win ME from Win 98. I checked the Win registry and the name seems to have changed (from PLX843 to PX-W8432T). However, I tried editing the Wavelab text file to reflect the change, to no avail.

Moving on... I didn't want to use my small HD on the primary IDE controller because I didn't want to boot from it (it seems the IDE is the first boot device, and I haven't figured out how or if it can be changed in the BIOS). I was keeping it mainly for extra storage. Having the CD on the master was one way to force it to boot from the ATA 100 drive.

Between the time I posted earlier, I switched the small HDD to a Master on the secondary High Point controller (I don't think I mentioned there was a secondary High Point). And I switched both CD's to the secondary IDE (Master and Slave). This also seems to work ok, but did nothing for the above two problems. It did, however, put my drive assignments in logical order (C: big HD, D: small HD, E: CD-RW and F: CD-ROM).

Do you see any problem with running the 5400 RPM(?) non-ATA(?) drive off the ATA controller? As of now it is working fine.

Lastly (because you asked) I am not doing recording on this computer. However, I am editing recording files (Cakewalk) that were recorded elsewhere. So I guess the issue you raise of using the faster drive solely for audio would be the same (since I believe the HD speed issue revolves around playback - rather than the recording process). I will think about your suggestion of loading the OS on the small drive and booting from it. However, because the computer is multi-use, I wanted the higher speed for my other programs as well.

Another long post... sorry. Thanks again.
 
Hi dachay2tnr,

I suspect the problem is with ME and Wavelab. Possible you need an updated version of Wavelab to get your burner working with it under Windows Me. I have the same problem. In Windows 2000 my burner is not recognized within Wavelab, but no problems burning under 98 and Wavelab.

Your old drive, 4.5GB is probably ATA-33 anyway, so I doubt there would be a problem. However, it is possible it may slow your new drive down all depending on how the HP controller operates.

However, because the computer is multi-use, I wanted the higher speed for my other programs as well.
Click to expand...

I don't think you will notice much difference between having your programs run off of the 7200 vs running off of the 5400 drive. If it's graphic related files, store them on the fast drive. For games and stuff I don't have any problems running them off 5400. It's just large streaming files you need to worry about.
 
Again, thanks for the advice, Emeric. I suspect you are correct about Wavelab and Win ME. I'll see if Steinberg has an update. Were you able to get a fix for Win 2K?

Do you know of any way that I can tell if having the ATA-33(?) HDD on the secondary ATA controller is actually slowing down the ATA-100 HDD?

Also, I've heard alot about dedicating a high speed HDD strictly to audio (as you also suggested). Is there any reason you can't get the same results by simply using a seperate partion on a single HDD. In other words, take the 20 Gig HDD and format in two 10 Gig logical dirves (or one 5 Gig and one 15 Gig) and use one of them solely for audio files. Seem to me this would accomplish the same thing as dedicating a single HDD. Am I missing something??
 
I agree with most of what Emeric said. I assume from your post that you have a motherboard with Primary and secondary IDE and that this High Point is a seperate controller card.

1) I don't believe having your old drive on the same controller would slow down the faster drive. However the only way I could think of to prove it would be to set it up both ways and run a benchmark program like Winbench each way.

2) You didn't say how much RAM you have, but regardless the OS will always be writing/reading temp files to and from its designated spot (usually C:\Windows\temp unless you change it). The more memory the less this happens. If you mearly partition your big drive there will still be these writes going on while you are doing other things. This is why having seperate OS and data drives are best when doing audio recording.

3) IDE controllers do not do a very good job of processing reads and writes across the same controller at the same instant. You can increase performance by allowing for this. For example, on my system(s) I use the following config -

Primary Master - Slower OS system drive
Primary Slave - CDR drive
Secondary Master - Fast data drive
Secondary slave - CD Rom drive

This seperates the reads and writes across different controllers when I am doing any of the following things: writing a CDR of data from the data drive; copying a CD; installing software to the OS drive; backing up the OS drive to a Ghost image on the data drive.

4) I have a Maxtor ATA100 controller card in one system (its the same as a Promise card). Works good but I was disturbed to find that it ONLY works from inside Windows. Boot to a DOS floppy and it is invisible. This is important to me because I back my system up to a Ghost image which I burn across mutiple CDRs. If my hard disk goes down I want to be able pop in a boot floppy, run Ghost, and restore from CDRs. I could not do that with the card so the card was moved to another less important computer and I bought a new motherboard with a built-in contoller.

5) The way drive lettering SHOULD work is:
All Primary Hard disk partitions;
All Extended hard disk partitions;
Then CDROM and other devices.

Also CDROM drives can be set as slave and work fine as the only drive on a controller. However hard drives (in theory) need to be set as single drive (this is the same as master on some brands like Maxtor) and wont work if set as a slave with no master. Don't know why yours does.

Hope some of this helps....
 
Rwhite -

No controller cards - everything is on the Motherboard. Primary and Secondary ATA100 controllers, and Primary and Seconday IDE controllers (plus the FDD). I'm running 256K RAM.

Interestingly, the computer wants to boot from the Primary IDE, unless there is something not bootable there - and then from the ATA100. I don't see any control options for this in the BIOS. I can control the boot sequence among the Primary and Secondary ATA 100, though. If I leave the Primary IDE open, or put a CD there, then it will boot from the ATA 100.

I don't know why my HDD worked as a slave without a master either. Only that it did. However, in that configuration the drive letter assingments were after the CD's, which were on the Primary IDE.

Thanks for the info. on partitioning the HDD. It now makes sense why the drive should be dedicated.

Lastly, I thought I recalled reading that CD-R's should preferably be run as Masters. Don't recall why, though.

The other somewhat interesting choice I have, is to configure both HDD's in a RAID array. I don't know much about RAID, except there is a claim to increased performance (depending on the Array choice). I haven't tried this, since setting up this configuration will destroy all current data on the HDD's and I really don't want to reload everything at this time. Any thoughts on this?

Interesting dialogue guys. Thanks much for the input.
 
Setting up a RAID will definately increase disk performance. Depending on the type of RAID it can also provide some crash protection, but that is usually only in the 3+ disk arrays found in servers. The typical IDE RAID is two drives which is a performance boost only.

I have heard about motherboards with more than 2 IDE controllers but have not done any hands on. I imagine that this design is intended precisely for setting up your own IDE RAID, otherwise it would not make much sense. This might explain the boot issue - it assumes you have a RAID if there is a drive on the Primary 100 and no RAID otherwise. A bit wierd, but I am sure with the right drives and tweaking it could kick some serious ass.

I once read in a CDR "Manual" (if you can call one page a "manual") that the drive should be set as a master. It worked fine both ways though. I think they just suggest this because most CD-ROMs come pre-set as slaves, and most people hook the CDR onto the same contoller as the CD (less work that way) and so it would reduce confusion. However I do have an early DVD drive that will only work when set as a master. I guess it depends on the unit in question.
 
The Finale <Windows TaDa sound here...>

I contacted Plextor about the Firmware update problem. They told me some motherboards don't want to recognize the CD-RW and also something about an ASPI layer. They provided me an ASPI Install file. Then they told me to go to Adaptec and get an ASPI32.exe file.

I ran both files, and then the Firmware updater program. It ran like a charm this time. I checked the revision number in Control Panel, and sure enough it had been updated.

I also updated my Wavelab program from 3.0 to 3.03d. This fixed the other problem and my CD-RW is now recognized by Wavelab (although it's possible it got fixed by the steps above - I can't be sure since I did both updates at the same time).

All quirks gone, everything running like a charm.

Lastly, just as an FYI, I thought I'd also try the RAID configuration. One of my drives is a 20 Gb and the other a 4.5 Gb. After I set up the RAID, I went to FDISK to partition the drives, and the 20 Gb was showing as only 9 Gb. Since this happens to be exactly twice the size of my 4.5 Gb Drive, my suspicion is that there is some ratio between the HDD's required for the RAID configuration. I guess it's really meant to be used with drives of equal capacity. Also, the second drive gets hidden. All in all, sacrificing a second HD for the performance boost doesn't seem to be worth it for a home hobbyist like me. So I put everything back to the original config.

I imagine if I were running critical applications, having the RAID configured as a "mirror drive" makes a lot of sense. If one HD goes out, everything is mirrored on the second, and you lose nothing. I don't think my rotten vocal recordings fall into this category yet (and I back them up on CD-R anyway). :)
 
It is true that a RAID setup should always have identical drives to work most efficently.

Actually it gets more complicated in that a two drive RAID and disk mirroring are different things. In a a two drive RAID you only get the storage size of one drive (as you discovered) but your data is spread on both drives. If one drive dies you are SOL.

In a server type true RAID array (which requires a minimum of three drives) it views the entire array as one drive but the storage size is a percentage of the total space. In a true RAID array one drive can die and the RAID can rebuild itself. This type of setup is only found in high $$$$$ servers.

Mirroring writes identical data to each of two drives so that if one drives dies you have an instant functioning backup

Glad the updates worked for you. I see that you are using EZCD Creator. Check my post on it - although labeled EZCD 5 it applies to all versions.
 
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