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Mail Archives: opendos/2001/02/14/08:24:25

Message-ID: <3A8A8327.BF3B2805@compuserve.de>
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 14:07:51 +0100
From: Utz Zarwell <UtzZarwell AT compuserve DOT de>
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To: opendos AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: prob audio CD on 2nd CD-ROM with NWCDEX
Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com

Patrick Moran wrote on Tue, 13 Feb 2001:
>First off, I would like to say this: IDE sucks.
[issuing compatbility hassels with IDE and EIDE]

Indeed, youre right. 
I usally tried to buy _mainstream_ hardware. 
Because of wide spreading it was tested _best_ . 
So if I didnt hear bad things about chances are thats not too bad. 
Of course that philosophy didnt work well :-)

Anyway, this is the system I do have. I have to fight with.

>CDROM writes slow the system way way down
>when they are burning a CD.

Ok, thats why I wouldnt touch my system burning a CD.
But writing CD happens (very) seldom, so I dont see a problem.

>So before I would blame it on NWCDEX, install MSCDEX and 
>rem out NWCDEX, then play with the drives until you can 
>find a configuration that will work.

>>On Mon, 05 Feb 2001 Utz Zarwell wrote:
>>Using MSCDEX its all ok.
I normally used NWCDEX.
At first sight I blamed the cd players not doing 
their job with 2nd CD-drive.
(Obviously its a hard job regarding all above mentioned 
incompatibilities and not well documented APIs)
Then I substituted NWCDEX with MSCDEX and it worked.
Alright, thats no sure proof. But with all the testing, 
it seems very likely to me that NWCDEX makes the difference.

Thats why I would like to hear if anyone else having 
two CD drives is able to play audio cds or not.

>Personally I don't see why you would need to put it 
>with the fast hard drive. They are slow to begin with. 
Because it reads with 24x max.

>I believe they only have 1mbs maximum burn rate anyway. 
>That is the same as a 2.88 floppy drive. 
>I know that you can use them through a USB port and not 
>lose any speed and that has a maximum of 1mbs or 1.5mbs 
>for burning. For playback you could lose some speed, 
>depending on the playback speed of the drive. Since you
>got an IDE drive, I am not aware of any IDE adapters for 
>USB like there is for SCSI.

SCSI, USB, floppy? Sorry I cannot follow.

>You may wind up just having to remove the other CDROM drive. 

This means you advise to remove a CDROM drive ??

>It may be purely a hardware problem. 

Less likely. Despite of the IDE issue there is more evidence 
beeing a API or _protocoll_ problem. At which level remains open...


>Someone mentioned something about using the secondary controller 
>for IDE drives and the Primary for EIDE drives. 

I mentioned to put the fast HDD and the CDRW to the onboard EIDE 
controller which is _first_ in system and to cable the slow HDD 
and the CDROM to the on board IDE channel. 
I do not see alternatives.
I am aware that usage of HDD and CDRW at the same cable is often 
said to be a risk. (Not for SCSI.) But bandwith together with 
hardware caches IMHO should give lower risk. 



All the best,
Utz

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