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Multiple IEEE1394 (Firewire) DVD Writers - XP (SP2)

G

G-Omaha

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It appears as if WINBLOWS has problems calculating the Device "name/number" of multiple similiar devices when they are connected via Firewire.

I am attempting to attach 5 (yes 5) DVD burners via IEEE1394; however, so far have been unsuccessfull. The External Enclosures employ a Prolific Chipset and only one of the devices will be recognized. I did find a Microsoft article on this topic (830987) that indicated that this is a "known" problem and that it was fixed in XP Service Pack 2 - but.. mine isn't fixed...

Thought that I'd pose the question here as the audience is generally limited to the DVD-users/abusers.

Anyone find or know of a "cure" to this problem - other than buy External Enclosures with Unique "chipsets".

Thanks for any info....
 
G-Omaha said:
It appears as if WINBLOWS has problems calculating the Device "name/number" of multiple similiar devices when they are connected via Firewire.

I am attempting to attach 5 (yes 5) DVD burners via IEEE1394; however, so far have been unsuccessfull. The External Enclosures employ a Prolific Chipset and only one of the devices will be recognized. I did find a Microsoft article on this topic (830987) that indicated that this is a "known" problem and that it was fixed in XP Service Pack 2 - but.. mine isn't fixed...

Thought that I'd pose the question here as the audience is generally limited to the DVD-users/abusers.

Anyone find or know of a "cure" to this problem - other than buy External Enclosures with Unique "chipsets".

Thanks for any info....
Click to expand...
It will be almost impossible to find 5 external 1394 chipsets that will work together you would also need about an 800W PSU with dedicated rails, that said it is not something I would recommend to anyone.:disagree:
 
SlyFox 1 said:
It will be almost impossible to find 5 external 1394 chipsets that will work together you would also need about an 800W PSU with dedicated rails, that said it is not something I would recommend to anyone.:disagree:
Click to expand...

The power is handled by each of the External Enclosures. Now regarding the "chipsets", that is most likely true and the reason for the post. XP should be able to handle 5 devices regardless of how they are connected. It does a perfectly good job with IDE, SATA, and USB as far as I know. It's just that with the USB, the more devices you have on the "bus" the less bandwith is available and with External DVD Writers (even a single one), it appears that the bandwith starts to "crap out" at about a 11.x write speed - or so it seems on my Computer.
 
G-Omaha said:
It appears as if WINBLOWS has problems calculating the Device "name/number" of multiple similiar devices when they are connected via Firewire.

I am attempting to attach 5 (yes 5) DVD burners via IEEE1394; however, so far have been unsuccessfull. The External Enclosures employ a Prolific Chipset and only one of the devices will be recognized. I did find a Microsoft article on this topic (830987) that indicated that this is a "known" problem and that it was fixed in XP Service Pack 2 - but.. mine isn't fixed...

Thought that I'd pose the question here as the audience is generally limited to the DVD-users/abusers.

Anyone find or know of a "cure" to this problem - other than buy External Enclosures with Unique "chipsets".

Thanks for any info....
Click to expand...
[OT]If you dislike Windows, install Linux.[OT]
 
G-Omaha said:
The power is handled by each of the External Enclosures. Now regarding the "chipsets", that is most likely true and the reason for the post. XP should be able to handle 5 devices regardless of how they are connected. It does a perfectly good job with IDE, SATA, and USB as far as I know. It's just that with the USB, the more devices you have on the "bus" the less bandwith is available and with External DVD Writers (even a single one), it appears that the bandwith starts to "crap out" at about a 11.x write speed - or so it seems on my Computer.
Click to expand...
12X is about the best you will attain with an external enclosure with a Prolific chipset. But having 5 running at the same time is beyond me. Can you tell me the reason you have chosen this path? You can put 4 devices on your ide channells if you have your HD connected via SATA. Then if you bought a different case you can have as many as 10 optical drives using controller cards. Why limit yourself to 1394 devices?
 
SlyFox 1 said:
12X is about the best you will attain with an external enclosure with a Prolific chipset. But having 5 running at the same time is beyond me. Can you tell me the reason you have chosen this path? You can put 4 devices on your ide channells if you have your HD connected via SATA. Then if you bought a different case you can have as many as 10 optical drives using controller cards. Why limit yourself to 1394 devices?
Click to expand...

The "Computer" is a super-duper Laptop and it already has two HDDs (Raid-1) and one ODD in it that are connected to the IDE ports. No more posrts - so that leaves me to use externals for the rest. I would like to have 5 attached (have the units; however, they don't play well together). The 12x speed with multiple drives writting is acceptable (about 8x speeds with 5 Drives using a mix of firewire and USB). Problem is that the newest version of NERO does not like burning to multiple drives if they are on different interfaces (firewire and USB).

The problem would be the same if I had only two external writers.... Alas, I'm tied to WINBLOWS because of the need to connect to a work network and mainframe (only allows WINBLOWS attached machines via VPN)...
 
I don't know how it is with Prolific chipsets, but Oxford has a way of changing what they refer to as "Chip ID Hi" and "Chip ID Lo". Those two will allow more devices to be used without conflicting.

Hopefully this info may point you in the right direction.
 
Can't do that with the ChipSets that I have. It's interesting that Seagate and LG implement "Unique" names for their Firewire devices. I guess that I will jut have to "live with it" because I AM NOT going to pay MicroSoft $59 for each question and answer session regarding their product's failures...

With two Firewire, one IDE, and two USB connected devices, I am able to burn five DVD's in about 12 minutes - I'll just live with that......
 
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