Hi,
Finally got a second hard drive after running out of space and reading all the posts on better capturing with dedicated drive. Trouble is, when I capture to the new HD, I drop so many frames the capture is useless. I can capture reasonably well (though far from perfect), using my "D: drive on the hard drive that also has my O/S. I needed the extra HD anyway, but what gives, why is the capture so poor on the seperate drive?
Thanks

Is it a 5400 or 7200 RPM drive? I think 7200 is the minimum for good, solid video capture. Also, is it firewire? Give us the specs.

Dennis Vogel

Yes, specs!

Also, do you have DMA enabled? I installed a second HDD recently and discovered that the only mode available was PIO 0 (i.e. not good). Turned out not to be too problematic; I just bought another controller card for $39.

also depends how you have it physically installed in your system, slave, master?

Thanks for responses.
Brand new 7200 RPM, 8mb cache HD.
New Dell computer, and I didn't change anything, so I'm assuming the HD would be connected to the primary channel?
Primary IDE channel is set to enable DMA. Device O is using Ultra DMA mode 2, device 1 is using PIO, but can not be changed to DMA (it is set to DMA if available).
Sorry for my lack of knowledge. I've read that PIO is not good, but don't see an option for changing device 1 to DMA.
Secondary IDE channel is using Ultra DMA mode 2 for both device 0 and device 1.
So am I on the right track? Would both HD's be on the primary IDE, so the fact that second device is using PIO the problem?
Is this a cheap Dell MB not supporting DMA for second device?
Dell computer, and intructions said to set jumpers to "cable". So this second HD is connected to the same cable as my primary HD.
Camera is connected through a fireware card. As I mentioned, I can capture reasonably well using original HD, but was hoping to get better results with new HD.
I have not experimented much with trying to turn off background apps. Seems like I always run into trouble. Try to turn off "Generic Host Process for Windows", and the computer really doesn't like it! Have tried using app EndIt All, but it only closes a small portion of running processes. Does not even shut down antivirus or firewall.
Hope I haven't rambled too much.
Thanks for the help.

Could be. In my case, at least, I tried just about everything and could not get anything other than PIO mode after I installed a second HDD in my Dell 4600 (connected to the primary IDE channel). I was a bit surprised since the computer is less than a year old and my Device 0 is using Ultra DMA 5. Also, my secondary IDE channel is using Ultra DMA 2 for both attached devices (DVD and CD writers).

I've tried every recommendation I could find with the exception of deleting the primary IDE channel (I read accounts by people who stated their PCs wouldn't boot after they deleted the primary channel). I also contacted Dell support (located, I believe, somewhere outside of East BeJesus, Bangladesh) and was promptly informed that they don't support a second HDD in my PC (and this despite the fact that there are instructions for installing a second HDD in the manual.......sheesh!).

Anyway, an easy fix, if you have a free PCI slot, is to buy a PCI controller card. I went out and bought one at Best Buy for $39 but I've since seen them on the internet for around $25. My second HDD is now in Ultra DMA 5.

I suspect that the fact that your new hard disk drive (HDD) is using PIO mode is a very likely cause of your dropped frames. Even if it is not, it is still worth spending a little time to fix it, so that it uses DMA. The slowest DMA mode is as fast as the fastest PIO mode. The fastest DMA mode is about 6x faster than the fastest PIO mode.

First, a quick recap on primary and secondary, master and slave.

Most motherboards have 2 IDE connectors. These are where you connect the flat ribbon cables to your HDD(s), CD and DVD drives.

One of the IDE connectors is the Primary connector, and the other is the Secondary connector.

Your initial HDD was (is) connected to the Primary IDE connector. As it was the only device connected via the ribbon cable, things were straightforward. You have now connected a second HDD to the Primary IDE, using the same ribbon cable. So which HDD is sending/receiving data via the IDE connection at any one time?

The answer is to designate one HDD as the Master device, and the other as the Secondary device. How is this done? The simple method is to set the 'jumper' on each HDD. If you look at the rear of any HDD or CD or DVD drive, between the power connector and the bank of pins where the ribbon cable connects, there are a set of pins (arranged in two rows). Spanning between a pair of these pins will be a small metal part, with a plastic 'cap' - this is the 'jumper'.

Depending on which pair of pins the jumper connects, the drive can report itself to the PC as a Master or Slave. These are often identified as 'MA' and SL' on the case of the HDD. In any case, the exact details are available in the instructions that came with the drive, or on the manufacturer's website.

All fairly straightforward so far.... but then our desire for speed made things more complex

Part of the problem is that the original ribbon cable that passes data was reaching the upper limit of the speed that it could transmit/receive data. So, original 40-wire ribbon cable was replaced by a newer 80-wire cable. (Incidentally, this still uses the same 40 wires for signals, but inserts a 'blank' wire in between each signal wire. This effectively soaks up any cross-talk between signal wires, and allows faster data rates.)

The new 80-wire cable allows the widespread use of another method of setting the jumpers on your HDD, namely Cable Select. This is sometimes marked on the HDD casing as CS. If you set the jumpers on both HDDs to CS, then the determination of which HDD is Master and which is Slave is determined by which connector on the ribbon that you use.

All 80-wire ribbons should be colour-coded in the same way -
Blue: The blue connector attaches to the host (motherboard or controller).

Grey: The grey connector is in the middle of the cable, and goes to any slave (device 1) drive if present on the channel.

Black: The black connector is at the opposite end from the host connector and goes to the master drive (device 0), or a single drive if only one is used.

A lengthy explanation, I know, but I always feel that it helps if you know *why* you are doing something, instead of just following a set of instructions.

So, finally, the instructions

1. Ensure you are using an 80-wire ribbon cable.

2. Set the jumper on each HDD to CS

3. Make sure that the original HDD is connected to the Black connector, and your new HDD is connected to the Grey connector.

4. Reboot, and you should now see that WinXP has automatically set both drives to UDMA (4 or 5).

Sorry about the lengthy explanation

You may find the following links helpful -

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/conf_Cable80.htm

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confCS-c.html

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/i...f_Jumpering.htm

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/op/jump_IDE.htm

my dell has an intel chipset- go to intel and download their application accelerator- it has a quick and easy way to set the DMA settings on all your drives. the dell PC will certainly support two HD's at UDMA, my year old 2350 does.

The Intel Application Accelerator isn't compatible with all chipsets, however. I know it's not compatible with the 865P on my Dell 4600.

Hey Onlysony,
Thanks for the info. My Dell is a 4600 also, and sounds like I'm having the same problems. I was hoping I was done computer shopping for a while, but guess I'll need to try the PCI controller card. Are all these PCI cards pretty much the same, or will some give me faster transfer speeds than others?

Jazzypoppy:
Have not looked inside my computer yet, but will when I have time this weekend. Pretty sure I've got things connected correctly, but I'll double check. Thanks for the info and the links!

take your Q's over to the Dell boards. I really doubt they don't support UDMA on a second HD. Esp if my older, bottom of the line model does.

Get the extra PCI controller card and make sure no two devices you might use at the same time are on the same cable.

IDE can only talk to one device on a cable at a time, so you'll notice that with both drives on the same cables copying files between them is very slow. By the same token, putting a CD/DVD burner on the same IDE channel as the drive (hard drive or CD/DVD drive) you are copying from will result in poor performance.

I beleive SATA gets around this limitation.

I like the Belkin, SIIG, Matrox and Promise IDE controllers and am running a Matrox-by-Promise 100ATA in my Dell 4550.

I took a peek over there and found this:

You need to set the drive to Enabled, auto in the BIOS setup, see your documentation manual. That will detect the drive at the motherboard level.

I do recall going into setup and checking the settings after installing my second HD. IIRC, everything was as suggested (i.e. enabled, auto, etc.) but the second drive was still in PIO mode.

Yep, I recall reading this before (several times).

After I did everything I could think of to enable DMA on the second HD (without success, obviously), I decided I would be better off just buying another controller card. I wound up with a SIIG Ultra ATA. It took virtually no time to install it......straight PNP with nothing to do other than slap it in the slot). It works great and both drives are now DMA 5.

mgh, a few more ideas: I re-read your orignal post, and your old HD is running at DMA 2, right? If the old one was not UDMA then the cable may not be 80 pin. are you sure you're using a 80pin cable and not a 40? May sure you're using the IDE Cable that came with the new drive.

I may be wrong here, but my uderstanding is the channel will run at the speed of the slowest device connected to it- so UDMA may not be possible without an extra card anyways. I was assuming the first drive was also UDMA. But you should be able to at least get DMA 2 on both of them.

as far as slow transfers between two drives, I've never noticed a performance lag with my two drives on the same channel. I've actually thought it was quite speedy, multiple GBs at a time.