when i first installed my nec into my dell, the dell cd burner was set as master and i had the nec as slave, then enabled the DMA by doing Advanced Settings on my Secondary IDE in Device Manager. then i burnt my first dvd with a iso image on nero that dvd took about 35 minutes to burn at 6x and both buffer levels were fluctuating. went back to check the DMA and turned out it was in PIO Mode.

currently my Nec is at Master and cd burner is at slave and the same sitaution happens when burning a cd in the dell burner. seems like Dell is not able to get the Secondary IDE in DMA, but always finds it in the Master. any one with a dell and had the same situation happen to them? im planning on getting a Lite on DVD-ROM but if i cant get the secondary IDE to be in DMA i wont be able to use it and just have to rip from the Master Drive(NEC)

btw with my first burn taking 35minutes and the buffer levels increasing and decreasing, could that have damaged the drive? i reburnt the same image with Nec as master and took me about 9:51 is that normal for a 8x burn?

thanks in advance

Yo-

Everything appears to be ok - but - did you check to see how your bios is reading the drives ?? You may want to check that out and also try using the "master" "slave" jumper settings instead of "cable select" settings - then double check your Devise Manager settings-

Mike