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l008com · Apr 17, 2002, 11:12 PM

OK if you keep up with my posts, you know I stuck a DVD ROM drive in my ZIP slot, so I have a CDR in the top and a DVD in the bottom...
See figure 1.

The problem is, Apple's DVD player only sees the DVD Drive if it is the master on the bus. So I put it as the master, because if you can't watch movies, there's little point in having a DVD Drive. But, much to my disappointment, iTunes is the same way, it only sees CDR's that are Master on the bus. So There's no way I can watch a DVD and burn a CD in iTunes without opening 'her up. I have Toast, but it's so much more of a pain in the ass then just using iTunes. This seems like it is something you would have to specifically add in your software. Its not the type of thing they'd forget to fix, but rather, it seems like the type of thing they, for some reason, specifically wanted to happen. Sucks for me and all my hard dremeling. If they would just fix one of these programs, iTunes or the DVD Player, I would be all set.

lucylawless · Apr 18, 2002, 03:52 AM

Doesn't Toast have the ability to import iToons playlists? or is it still too hard for you after that. I don't use iToons to burn, because the one and only time I tried it insisted on copying or decompressing or doing something retarded to my files before it even started burning. What's the point of having a fast cd drive if your software takes twice as long to prepare the data first? well anyway...

TNproud2b · Apr 19, 2002, 12:04 AM

Try this and see what happens...

Set jumper on your hard drive as Primary Slave & the DVD as Primary Master.

Set the CDRW as Secondary Master.

Hopefully it will boot from the hard drive which has been moved from Master to Slave - and hopefully the CDRW and DVD drives will function because they are both configured as Master devices.

Edited to add:

If all else fails you can jumper the drives as 'Cable Select' (CS) instead of using Master/Slave assignment...see if that works.

[ 04-19-2002: Message edited by: TNproud2b ]

l008com · Apr 19, 2002, 12:36 AM

You mean put one of the optical drive on my hard drive's IDE bus? My cables aren't nearly long enough. Does anyone know if this will work, before I go buy new cables?

TNproud2b · Apr 19, 2002, 09:44 AM

Originally posted by l008com:
<STRONG>You mean put one of the optical drive on my hard drive's IDE bus? My cables aren't nearly long enough. Does anyone know if this will work, before I go buy new cables?</STRONG>

Yes, that's what I mean. Connect either the CDRW or DVD (jumpered as 'master') then change the jumper on the hard drive to 'slave'.

I'm not certain if a Mac will boot from a hard drive that is not configured as 'master'. Most PeeCees will boot from the first detected hard drive that contains a bootable sector. Usually, the motherboard looks for hard drives in this order (and they will be assigned addresses in this order: C:, D:, E:, F

> Primary Master, Secondary Master, Primary Slave, Secondary Slave (also known as IDE device# 0,0 1,0 0,1 & 1,1)

IDE cables are dirt cheap - it might be worth the cost just for an experiment. You could always remove the CDRW or DVD from its bay and position it nearer to the IDE cable so you can test it before you spend any money.

COmie JOe · Apr 19, 2002, 09:55 AM

Originally posted by TNproud2b:
<STRONG>

Yes, that's what I mean. Connect either the CDRW or DVD (jumpered as 'master') then change the jumper on the hard drive to 'slave'.

I'm not certain if a Mac will boot from a hard drive that is not configured as 'master'. Most PeeCees will boot from the first detected hard drive that contains a bootable sector. Usually, the motherboard looks for hard drives in this order (and they will be assigned addresses in this order: C:, D:, E:, F

> Primary Master, Secondary Master, Primary Slave, Secondary Slave (also known as IDE device# 0,0 1,0 0,1 & 1,1)

IDE cables are dirt cheap - it might be worth the cost just for an experiment. You could always remove the CDRW or DVD from its bay and position it nearer to the IDE cable so you can test it before you spend any money.</STRONG>

A mac will boot from a slave drive with no problem

if putting it on the ATA/66 bus dosen't work try a firewire converter and hook up the CDRW as a FW burner (with an internal converter)

l008com · Apr 19, 2002, 05:32 PM

What I'd really like is a patch for one of the programs to let it use 'slaves' instead of just masters.

petoria · Apr 19, 2002, 09:04 PM

A way to see if making the hd slave will work without getting a longer IDE cable would be to open your G4, remove one of the optical drives and connect it to the hard drive ribbon cable (case still open) and see if it boots with the hard drive as slave in this configuration. If it does (and I think it should), then replace the optical drive and go get a longer cable. It's a way to check without any financial expenditure.

l008com · Apr 19, 2002, 10:04 PM

Of coarse, if these programs are specific enough to only look in the Master drive and not the slave, it might also be specific enough that it only looks on the optical drive bus anyway, and still won't even look for the optical drive that is in the hard drive bus as master. But if your suggestions do work, i will simply have the CDR on one master, and the DVD ROM on the HD master, and the HD, well i plan on getting SCSI drives soon as SoftRAID for X comes out... so that is that... assuming it works.