Very slow file transfer.Plz help!

[mpoy]

It takes forever to copy files from a cd to hard drive e.g when I restore the image of the entire installation, which is a file 1.5gb takes up to 50min!
My cd is 24x speed (3,6mb/sec) and the disk a hitachi 5400rpm with 8mb of cache, so this isnt normal.Btw copying the same file from an external usb disk takes 5mins.
After some research I made I found that both the hard drive and the cd-rom are connected on the primary ide controller.I believe this is the reason of the problem.
Do laptops have 2 ide controllers, like desktop motherboards have?Is it possible if I open it, to change the connection of cdrom from primary controller to the secondary one?

 

[killernotebooks]

A disk image running off CD is going to take a long time to transfer. It would take me 3+ hours off a DVD image, and with a USB hard drive it take 8 minutes. It also depends on what you are moving. If it is 30 zillion little files, it will take longer than 1 big file.

Notebooks do not have dual controllers per se like you were thinking. There won't be a cable inside you can put one drive on a controller and another drive on a controller and set them both to master. In fact, notebook CD/DVD drives come preset to master or slave and are, for all intents and purposes unchangeable. I would look and see if there is a firmware upgrade for the CD if anything.

Also, check what IRQ those controllers are using and swap out whoever is sharing with them (if it is something obvously hoging resources) and swap them out. It would take a lot longer if it was sharing the IRQ and switching back and forth between 2 highly used devices.

 

[mpoy]

Thanks for your answer. I guess this is normal then, I thought there was a problem with mine. I checked the device manager, the primary ide controller where both the disk and cdrom are connected is using irq 14 without sharing it with any other device. The strange thing is that there is a secondary ide channel listed also which is using irq 15 without sharing it.
Also Im thinking of buying a dvdrw. Do I have to bother if it is set as master or slave before I connect it or notebook drives are cable select by default so you just plug them and they work?
Thanks again for your help

 

[killernotebooks]

There isn't a cable per se, they have a slot in the back that it will click in to. The best way to tell what you need is to search on the modle of CD you have now, and possibly the notebook type. Usually if the drive is set up weird (like master slave default setting) there will be a ton of people with upgrade problems bitching all over the net.

These are the two DVD's I would recommend:
Pionerr Dual Layer DVD Burner

Samsung Dual Layer DVD Burner

I would stay away from lightscribe burners in notebook drives, as you can see by the number of people offering them (very few) they are prone to problems.

Also, I would stay away from slot-loaded instead of tray-loaded drives. Those are troublesome too. It's one thing when i have a whole box of them and can pull on eout and throw it away, but it is another to an end user that just wants to replace a drive and have it work.

 

[mpoy]

Once again thank you for your suggestions!