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Hi Folks,

I have a Dell Dimension 4600 with an SATA hard drive, a Samsung CD-ROM, and a Sony CD-RW. I have never had the case open, but I have copied information from the device manager below. I was hoping someone could help me with a few questions:

1) If I understand correctly, the Samsung drive is on the primary IDE channel and is running in DMA mode 5 and the Sony drive is on the secondary IDE channel and is running in DMA mode 2. Is this correct?

2) Since the Samsung drive is running in DMA mode 5, can I assume that the cable is an 80 conductor cable.

3) Why does Device 0 on the secondary IDE channel show that it is running in PIO mode when no device is attached?

Sorry for the newb questions. I'm going to replace the Samsung CD-ROM with either an NEC or Pioneer drive.

Thanks

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INFORMATION FROM DEVICE MANAGER

DVD/CD-ROM DRIVES

Samsung CD-Rom; Location 0(0)

Sony CD-RW; Location 1(1)

IDE ATA/ATAPI CONTROLLERS

PRIMARY IDE CHANNEL

Device 0; Transfer Mode: DMA if available; Current Transfer Mode: Ultra DMA mode 5

Device 1; Transfer Mode: DMA if available; current transfer mode: not applicable

SECONDARY IDE CHANNEL

Device 0; Transfer Mode: PIO only; Current Transfer Mode: PIO mode

Device 1; Transfer Mode: DMA if available; current transfer mode: Ultra DMA mode 2

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You sure you're HDD is SATA? They way I interpret it as:

IDE0
Master - Hard drive
Slave - empty

IDE1
Master - Samsung CD-ROM
Slave - Sony CD-RW

Ian

I checked the invoice from Dell and it shows a "120GB Serial ATA Hard Drive."

I also looked at the bios--which I should have done before anything else--and it shows:

SATA primary drive...hard drive
SATA secondary drive...off
Primary master drive...off
Primary slave drive...off
Secondary master drive...CD-Rom device
Secondary slave dirve...CD-Rom device

So, I assume that you are right about the Samsung and Sony drives being on the secondary IDE channel. It's curious what device manager is showing on the primary IDE channel.

Is there any way to tell if the cable on the secondary channel is an 80 wire cable? This seems to be important with the Pioneer DVD-writer.

Thanks for the help.

I'm guessing your SATA controller is showing up as your primary IDE channel or something and that the Ultra DMA mode 5 device is your hard drive.

They only real way to check the cable is to pop it open and look.

why don't you check with Nero InfoTool?
www.cdspeed2000.com
Configuration tab.