adding dvd writer, original cd/dvd combo drive .....

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

Adding a second Optical Drive should not affect the functionality of an existing drive.

Check that you have physically cionfigured the drives correctly.

That is: if Optical Drive 1 and Optical Drive 2 are attached to the same IDE interface cable, you make sure that Drive 1 is Jumpered as Master, connected at the end of the cable: Drive 2 is jumpered as Slave, connected to the centre plug of the cable.

BIOS should see all the IDE drives and show them as:
Primary Master - Hard Disk Drive and Model Number
Primary Slave - not present
Secondary Master - Optical Drive and Model Number
Secondary Slave - Optical Drive and Model Number

[or whatever configuration you have used]

If it is not right in BIOS it won't work in Windows.

Generally one will not rquire to provide any 'new' drivers for Windows XP, it has most 'built-in': but of course there are exceptions. SO unless it is absolutely necessary [or if specifically described as part of the installation process by the manufacturer] do not bang in a CD and load up software or drivers. Let Windows do it's thing.

When all the drives are properly recognised, you will need 3rd party software to play DVD movies, but I expect that it is already installed as you have a combo drive already. Again only install software if it is absolutely necessary. You do not require 2 software DVD players: so if the DVD player provided with the new drive is better than the original then uninstall the first before installing the second.




"sk8104s8tan" wrote:

> hi
> I'm trying to add a pioneer dvd/cd writer drive to my presario xp machine
> which has already a cd/dvd combo drive but no dvd write, with the new drive
> came a software cd that supposedly has the drivers,etc needed for the drive
> to work correctly which it does to some degree. now my original drive
> doesn't seem to work correctly, for example when I insert a cd/dvd of any
> kind, the drive will not be able to read it until I reboot, then it read the
> current cd/dvd but when I insert a new cd/dvd, it will display the files
> from the previous cd/dvd. the cd/dvd writer came with software such as
> Ulead dvd, nero express, and Sai write dvd switch utility which I have tried
> the different UDF driver settings to no avail. I have made this work
> before but since I did a reformat recently I forgot what I did to make it
> work. that is my problem, sorry for the long post, I hope someone out there
> can help me refresh my memory. Thanks
>
>
>