I have added a 2nd HDD (Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 9 - 80GB)to a Dell 4550 2.53Ghz to use for video editing.  I have put it in the slave position with my original C: drive as master.  Dell recommended leave the SETTINGS as cable select so I did.  The new HDD remains in PIO mode and will not switch to DMA.  Because of this when I transfer video I drop every other frame.  The new HDD is UDMA-66 compatible.

Motherboard driver?  Switch to Master/Slave cofiguration?

Help please mmramrod.....So what configuration are you trying?
Both as cable select or ...........C as the master and D ( the new one ) as slave . Did you format the new one ?

let us know

dl65  Wow. Quick.  Thanks

I have both set to cable select with the old drive (C) at the end of the cable (master) and the new D: drive in the middle (slave) position.

The D is formatted and seems to work fine with everything except transferring video.

I am somewhat computer illiterate so please bear with meA quick update....  I set the jumpers on the new drive as slave and the old drive as master (not cable select) and it still did not work.

Then I took the cable from my CD/DVD drive and put each hard drive on it's own channel as masters (no CD/DVD at all)  Both HDDS worked perfectly (both showed up as UDMA in device MANAGER).

So my problem happens when I have both HDD's on the same cable.  This must be common problem?!?!

Thanks everyone for the help.

mmramrodI still need my CD/DVD drive back.

Anyone?

It's driving me nutsCable select only works with 80-conductor cable W/ 40-pin connector.  If only one device on any cable, sometimes cable select will work.  If 2 devices, use 40-conductor with master/slave and 80-conductor with cable select.  40-conductor cable only supports up to UDMA Mode 2 (UDMA-33).  80-conductor cable defaults to UDMA-33 if motherboard interface is only UDMA-33.

2 hard drives on one 80-conductor cable works just fine with cable select.

Use the cable that CAME with your new drive.  It's probably 80-conductor.

Read this:  http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confCable80-c.htmlThanks.  I'll try that

I believe I have 80 conductor cable now because it has the color codes and my computer manual (DELL) recomends using cable select.

We'll see