Legit Reviews

I'm putting a DVD-RW drive that I had lying around into my desktop, and I don't want to remove the CD-RW it uses now because that drive is amazing (it reads discs that are scratched beyond recognition like they're brand new). However, in order to have them both in my PC I needed a longer IDE cable. I dug one out that I also happened to have laying around. During computer boot the lights on both, CDRW and DVDRW were flashing, but then onve Windows loaded, neither of the drives was recognized.

My first thoughts were about faulty IDE cable. I took it out and tested every single pin with my multimeter, they were all fine. I put it back in again, go back to Windows and check Device Manager. Apparently it sees my DVDRW drive, although it calls it by a weird name (putting SMo_uuW in front). However, this DVDRW drive doesn't show up in My Computer menu. Next I go into BIOS to see if it sees both drives. BIOS shows the DVDRW Drive as Secondary Master and nothing as secondary slave (I expected the CDRW to be there). I decided to check the pins (if both of them are set to master that could cause them not being recognized). The DVDRW is set to Master, but CDRW is set to CSEL (Not sure what CSEL is, but guessing it means that it lets the PC decide whether it's master or slave).

I go back to windows and google this problem, find out that someone solved it by reinstalling Nero (because apparently NeroCheck blocks drives that weren't there at the time of install). So I do that, still nothing.

What's the problem? By the way, not sure if this could be the problem but my setup is as follows: IDE1: Master: HDD1, Slave: HDD2, IDE2: Master: DVDRW, Slave: CDRW.

umm, i think that you need to either set them to master and a slave or both csel (cable select). Id give that a go.

have you tried the drive's by themsleves.

you will not like the performance if you put them on cable select. A guy from my work bought a DL DVDrw for his dell and he said it was taking for ever to do anything and could I look at it. I looked and both drives were set to CS so I put them as Master and Slave and his DVD burn times went from 55 mins a disk to 8.

Yep, CSEL was the problem. I thought that if at least one of them is set to CSEL it should work, but apprently not. Now they're master and slave and both seem to be recognized. Thanks.

yeah, CSEL or Cable Select, works by recognizing its position on the IDE cable and auto setting it to master or slave....this causes problems down the road, however, and the only place I've actually seen it used the most is on old OEM machines.......if you have the drives predefined Master and Slave (hard set by the jumper), there is no liability, besides bad hardware

I really don't know how to explain it, but the best way to go with optical and even HDDs is a Master/Slave relationship.......saves plenty of headache down the road

That explains why my CDRW was set to CSEL in the first place. I pulled it out of my HP Pavilion when I was putting together the desktop I use now.

yep, HDDs would be set on CSEL too from the factory......why I have no idea, lol

oh, but what's worse, especially with the older compaq's (pre 2000), is that some of the HDDs didn't have a jumper label on the drive, so if you wanted to change the jumper config, you had no way of telling, because the PCB didn't have any sort of labeling either.....crazy stuff