How to install a dual-DVD drive

Q I have fitted a second optical drive so I can copy directly from one disc to another. There is a single Parallel IDE cable that connects both drives to the motherboard and both have power connections.

Either drive works fine when the other is disconnected but only the new one works when both are connected.

Arthur Richards

A The most likely cause is that the drives have not been set up properly to work with each other. Fixing this problem is going to mean opening your PC case.

As you have described, two drives can be fitted using the same cable but they need to be identified in order to work properly. The drive can be set to Master, Slave or Cable Select. The latter is an automatic mode where the drive chooses which setting to use based on the cable itself.

The setting is selected by moving a jumper on the back of the drive, this is a very small connector that covers two pins.

Remove the drives from the computer and look for the jumper near the cable connection. Due to the small amount of room near the jumpers the settings will be abbreviated, normally MS for master, SL for slave and CS for Cable Select. We recommend using Cable Select for both drives.

Otherwise make sure that one is set as the Master and the other to Slave. The normal convention is to make the end drive the Master and the middle the Slave. That’s the same arrangement that Cable Select will use.

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