slicepie

Okay, I have come to the conclusion that the read speed of my drive has absolutely nothing to do with which IDE or Slave/Master position it is in. After logging some more tests I noticed that my Local Drive C: was still averaging read speeds of about 7.1x and the max read was never higher than 10.9x. What was interesting was that when I ran tests on the secondary hard drive (Local Drive G:) there was a dramatic difference. The dvd drive was averaging read speeds of 12.5x (up 4.6x) and reached a max speed of 15.9x (up 5.0x). Now considering the speeds are already pretty fast, these increasing read speeds only reduced the read time by about 2 minutes, but that's 2 minutes I have to try not to break something else. I have tried testing this way under both IDE positions as well as switching the Slave/Master positions, and using 4 different reading programs. The results seem to be pretty conclusive. My only question is why? The secondary hard drive that I installed is a Western Digital. I'm not sure what the primary one is. So, I must ask, is it possible for these programs to simply "like or dislike" a particular type of drive?

"We shall say, 'Ni!', to you until you appease us."

Okay, I've finally begun to get higher read/rip speeds. To be honest I'm not quite sure what I did to get it to work. I think it was a combination of the following: 1. Changed DVD-RW IDE positions - SONY DRU-810A from Secondary to Primary; SONY DRU-500A from Primary to Secondary 2. Changed SONY DRU-810A from Slave to Master; Changed SONY DRU-500A from Master to Slave 3. Installed Secondary 40GB Hard Drive, 3rd IDE position, Slave 4. After installing Hard Drive, original power cables would not reach their respective DVD-RW drives so I switched the power cables on them. As soon as I ran the 1st rip, the SONY DRU-810A reached over 13x read speeds. Since then I have been logging the read speeds and in FILE Mode it has reached a Max Read Speed of 15.5x and in .ISO Read Mode it has reached a Max Read Speed of 15.2x. Thanks to all for your advise and suggestions.

Glad I could provide some input. Send a slice this way I forgot about the green peppers

Lightning, Thanks. Sorry to be such a Doubting Thomas.

Zacoz, I appreciate your help. It was the little lines at the end of the columns that were messing me up. But I see what you mean about the graph needing some extra work that probably isn't worth the time and effort. I didn't think it would be so complicated, but I forgot I was dealing with a Bill Gates' creation. Anyone up for extra cheese, double pepperoni, hot peppers, onions and bacon?

Sorry Lightning. I wasn't trying to offend anyone. As I have been a previous victim of some rather malicious ad/spy-ware, I am very cautious whenever I consider a new program, especially when it states "Advert Supported" on the download page. The link I was sent took me straight to that page and all I saw were the different versions. There is nothing on that page that explains anything about the "Advert Supported" versions and as I am not familiar with the program it just sent up red flags everywhere. I am sure everyone can appreciate my concern. Thanks for all of your great work.

Well, let's see. I can either buy a serial number to download the normal version or have my computer bombarded with adware in order to download the free version. Neither of these options are acceptable. Plus, I already have Microsoft Excel. So, back to my question. I am not looking for alternative solutions. I want to know if the IMG Burn Graph Log can be successfully imported and graphed in Microsoft Excel. If it can, I would appreciate it if someone could explain to me how to do it, because I can't seem to get it to work.

I just began saving the graph for my burns to my hard drive and I have successfully opened the graph data with Microsoft Excel but everytime I try to graph the result in Excel, I get a graph set up but no stats. Can someone please test this out and tell me what I need to do or what I'm doing wrong?

I would much rather cut down the mightiest tree in the forest...with a Herring!!

That's how I have it set up now but my old drive is the master. So I guess I'll try swapping the drives physically as well as moving the jumpers and see if that improves anything. I will post again later tonight with my results. If there is an improvement, I will try to include a few screenshots of befores and afters for anyone who may have this problem in the future. Just in case I forget later, thanks to everyone who has thrown ideas around with me.

I didn't see it in the forum. The product review was listed on the sidebar and I clicked the link and read through. They used Nero Speed Reader (I think that's what it's called) so I don't know if they actually ripped a disc to the hard drive or were just testing the drives capabilities. As for swapping the drive's slave/master settings, I only have 1 IDE cable, but it has 3 pin sets on it. My original drive, which came with my pc is plugged into the 1st pin set and I plugged my new drive in to the 2nd pin set. Now, ny original drive was always classified in Drive E but since I added the new drive, the old drive has changed to Drive F and now the new drive is Drive E. In your opinion, do you think just moving the jumper on each drive would be sufficient or should I actually move the drives in order to plug into the other pins?

There were a few mentions of succesful flashes. I actualy downloaded BenQ Flasher in zip file form but when I tried to open it I got some goofy error. So I went back into the cdfreaks forum and looked some more and there was mention of needing a .cvt program and something else. That was when it seemed to get a little more complex than I am comfortable dealing with. I tried playing with the buffer settings anyway and it seems when I max out the buffer (256MB), I get a higher read speed average (8.0x-9.5x) for the majority of the read (0-70%) and then the speed drops to between 3.0x-5.5x for the remainder of the read. That drops my average read rate to around 6x. I also tried setting the buffer down a little to around 10MB and I received a more consistant 5.0x-7.5x read speed throughout the read, but still not a very high average. I thought about that but I was hoping to get some feedback on it first. Now that you've suggested it I'll give it a try. It's not the end of the world if I never reach 16x, it's just a little funny that the drive is advertised and marketed for 16x but never actually gets there. Of course, when cdfreaks tested it they got speeds as high as 16.2x, so obviously they know something I don't. I'd really like to have a higher average read than 6x though, especially since my old drive can read at 4x consistantly.

Thanks. I read the post in the forum but I am not comfortable flashing my drive into something else. I could do it if it was another sony drive but changing it like that makes me uneasy. Do you think my slower read speed has anything to do with the fact that this drive is acting as a slave and not the master and the other drive is a Sony DVD RW as well? My other drive is a Sony DVD RW DRU-500A 2.1a and it is the master drive.

Actually, the 10.8x is the maximum read speed I have seen. I have been logging my last 35 rips and my average read speed is only 6.1x. One more quick question. Does changing the buffer size or tweeking the options (you know which orgram I'm referring to) such as changing read speed from Max to 16x usually have any effect?