Hooking up DVD-ReWriter to PC

Stephen P

I just bought a DVD-Rewriter today (Model: LG GSA-4163B), the PC doesn't seem to be recognising it and it doesn't even recognise my CD-Rom either. There's a cable that came with the DVD-Rewriter, should one end go into the DVD-Rewriter and the other end into my CD-Rom? There was never a cable connecting my CD-Rom to my old CD-Writer before.

Cheers!!

duridian

To connect both a DVDwriters another optical drive (cdrom/dvdrom etc.) you will usually need an 80conductor IDE cable. This is the same type of cable used for modern Ultra ATA IDE hard drives. Many older systems only used 40 conductor IDE cables for the optical drive and this can cause major problems if you try connecting more recent drives like DVDRW drives as it isn't compatible with the newer type of optical drive. This is what I have found to be the problem with most systems if the pc isn't identifying either drive.
I recommend you set both the drives to cable select (CS) by the jumpers on the back of the drives also.

[Edit:] Look at the "ribbing" of the cable and count the ridges, if by the time you have gone about halfway across you have only counted about 20 ridges then that is a 40 conductor cable, if the ribbing is smaller/finer then you probably have an 80 conductor. I'd be very surprised if the cable which came with the DVDRW wasn't an 80 conductor. Are there a total of 3 connector points on this cable? If there are only 2 then it is designed to work with only 1 drive.

Stephen P

An IDE cable came with the DVD Rewriter, so do I just switch the IDE cables around?

Stephen P

There are 3 connector points on the cable, i only counted 40 ridges. I'm going to switch the cables around in a minute, I'm just formatting a new hard drive, its taking forever!!!!! :mad:

Stephen P

Getting off the point from the above question, I didn't want to be starting a new thread...

I've installed a new hard drive today, is it possible to install a program onto the new hard drive and run it from there even though my OS (win xp) is on my c:\ That might sound like a stupid question :rolleyes: I know my way a PC fairly well but installing hard drives is new to me.

kmb

Use the new cable,set the writer to master/cdrom to slave/blue connector if its on the ide cable into motherboard.Black ide in writer/grey to cd rom


note:If u unplug ide from cdrom it should detect the writer,if not let us know,if so its a conflict of master /slave change as instruted above.

regards kieran.


2nd question:yes you can as long as it is fdisked and formatted and recognised by windows.

Stephen P

Thanks lads for your help! Everything is sorted out now! I just changed the jumper settings on the DVD-Rewriter and its perfect now!!!