Need computer help.

[macmac]

I mistook a Floppy Disk Drive FDD on the mother board for a IDE, and there is only one IDE port, using the ribbon cable to the hard drive and the dvd in the system and I wish to add another dvd to the system as a slave.

Is there such a ribbon cable with 4 connectors?

The order currently is mother board to hard drive, hard drive to dvd drive.

No other IDE2 connector on the mother board.

[Cajunrider]

Mac, I haven't seen a ribbon with 4 connectors. Not saying there isn't one, I just haven't seen one. There are some IT experts on here that will lead you in the right direction. On this desktop PC, I have one IDE connector on my board with a 2 connection ribbon. One connection is for my primary hard drive on which my operating system resides and the other connector is for my secondary hard drive which I use for storage. I have both CD and DVD players and I think they are on the same type of dual connector ribbon cable. Both of my hard drive jumpers are set to "Cable Select". The BIOS recognizes both drives and addressed them with their own ID letter.

[macmac]

Digging deeper what I wanted to do can't be done. You can only run one master the HD and a slave per cable.

Since there is no other IDE port i am skunked.

When I ordered the dvd burner I made 2 mistakes. One was I took the FDD floppy disk port as a IDE port. The other mistake was system info didn't list the dvd as writeable and lists it as a read only which is odd, but that dvd in the tower does write and I tested it to write a icon.

No big deal i just will keep the dvd drive new in its box for another time.

The oddest thing seem to be that this mother board has no 2nd IDE port.

Pretty much the end of topic..

[blowndodge]

I was thinking that mac and asking some of my IT guys at work. Your kind of screwed with only one IDE port...

[Dave]

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...%20Controllers

Why not go this route?

[macmac]

Digging deeper and not understanding what I am reading, there is a manual here, but I can't tell for what, one or both
Version Language Size Download
1.1 Multi-Language 2831KB M7309v1.1.zip
1.0 Multi-Language 187KB RAID_Floppy.zip


This is a pic of the mother board
http://www.msi.com/uploads/prod_8579...421cde9978.jpg
This is too the manual, and I don't understand what I am reading.
http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=do...1&prod_no=1086
I guess I don't need any A drive, or a 2nd dvd writer.

There is a slew of A drive floppy drive layin around here. Is there a reason to install one? Once this tower had one in it I can tell by missing slug slots, and screw marks. The system even think it's still there and says it works LOL. I atleast know what the little slot plates are for.

This does have 2 SATA ports, but I am not sure what these are for.

I don't know how to tell what the PCU is either. There is a long list of Athlon X2. I don't know if I need to know fer that matter.

Most of the reasoning, not much, is because my old dell hell has a writable cd and a dvd.. plus A drive which I hardly ever used.

[macmac]

And well I just figured the 2nd drive would be a good idea. At this point if the monitor don't show up soon, I am gonna have to get a digital fog horn, maybe a light house, fer sartin amber passing lamps for this system

Ahougga

[AlabamaNomadRider]

Mac I know how to turn my computer on and how to type. That is about it. I wish I could learn more but there is so much to learn. Hope everything works out for you.

[pagemastr]

Originally Posted by macmac

This does have 2 SATA ports, but I am not sure what these are for.
.

Mac:
The SATA ports you are talking about are the 'new' ports used for Hard drives and CD DVD devices and you can use these to install a CD burner. This is common any more, computers with only one IDE and most of the drive ports are for the newer SATA interface.

My fav computer supply store online is newegg.com. You can find a burner there, but my recommendation is to not get an OEM version, you will want to get a retail version that has the burning software included as a lot of it is specific to the drive installed. It most likely also includes a cable to connect to the motherboard. Pretty simple install. Good luck!

[macmac]

Thanks Jack... On this tower there is no such thing as oem... There is no name brand to be found anywhere.

O have a new dvd burner in my greasey mitts too. I mistook a 36 pin FDD port on the mother board for a 40 pin IDE port. These are with in 1/4" the same size see? ::)

I find I might be able to get a IDE adapter to SATA, and a SATA cable to the SATA port.

I hope this works because today is a play day and I am heading out shortly to White Horse Press for their annual Spring Open House, and several computer stores will be on the way.

If you happen to see this very soon and you happen to know this won't work YELL at me.



yeah Gene this ain't zactly my thing either. The lessons come hard, with 0 training. If I could find a way and a time to take a few basic course this would be cake.

I wasn't born knowing about cars or bikes or much else, but with time, learning, and etc there isn't much I find i can't do.

Maybe when I hit 60 I will start a new carrear in computers LOL