Problem: IDE Channels

[utdmleach]

Hi, bit complicated to explain but i'll try my best.

I've got 2 DVD drives

- 1 DVD Rom
- 1 DVD Burner

They are both on the secondary IDE channel

I've got 2 Harddrives

- 1 160 gig Master (Windows OS installed)
- 1 300 gig slave (random files games etc)

My read speed has always been max 2.5x on both my DVD drives and I have never been able to get them running any faster. I've tried everything, going into BIOS and enabling DMA 2, firmare flashing, drivers etc.

Today I read something intresting:

'I got the impression that if you used two different speed IDE devices on the same channel the faster IDE would slow down to the slower IDE's speed.'

So I'd thought I'd give this a go but am a bit lost as how to arrange the hardrives, my thinking was that the setup should be as followed:

Primary IDE Channel

1- 160 gig (Windows OS installed)
2 - DVD Rom

Secondary IDE Channel

1- 300 gig (random files games etc)
2 - DVD Burner

I'm assuming that if I put the HD with the OS in primary IDE channel and as master it will boot it.

Am I right?

[5cupa]

yes it will normally look for primary ide1 for the first bootable partition, unless you tell the bios otherwise

[utdmleach]

Got it them running faster by uninstallling secondary IDE in device manager, still, slow read speeds, starts at 3.5x then gradually gets higher.