Hey everyone, I was wondeing what the best dual optical drive configuration would be? Should I put the basic cd/dvd reader/primarily used drive in master and the one I use to burn say dual-layer dvds in slave? The opposite or what? Or should I just stick with one dual-layer dvd burner and keep things simple? That’s what I was leaning for but are there any advantages of going with the dual drive route other than easy CD/DVD ripping? Thanks dudes/dudettes.
What I’m doing is using an ATA controller card in addition to the on-board ATA stuff. That way I have every IDE device on it’s own channel. As a general rule, you don’t want to mix Optical drives and hard drives on the same IDE channel. Some drives demand that they be master if they must share.
Alright, so you think I should get myself a ATA controller? Sounds good.
Just make sure your ATA controller is ATAPI compliant, or you won’t be able to use it with CDROMs, only HDDs. Also, there are SATA burners starting to crop up, which is pretty cool. That would also make certain that each device got its own channel. 
Okay, that AT, I’ll have to add that to my Newegg shopping list this July.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815150022
Something like that will work fine. I’ve got a SIIG-brand PCI card with a CMD 649 ATA100 chipset on it and it handles opticals just fine.
Nice one, thanks B, I suppose an extra 37 bucks isn’t too bad.