optical drive porblems

I put in a second optical drive in my powermac a long time ago, but now I want to have the original one working too, so I attached both drives and turned the computer on. Now when I turn it on, they stay closed, or sometimes open randomly when I start it. When I press the eject button, they open, then close and open and close over and over again randomly. I don't know what's going on. When I had only the new drive in, it was working fine.

Ohh dear you need to set one as master and one as slave. Appears they are both set to master?

I guess so. How do you do that in mac?

I'm posting this just incase the actual hardware matters for setting master/ slave. i have no idea. The top one is the original combo drive it shipped with and the bottom one is an LG (forget exact model) DVD-R drive, like a superdrive equivalent.

So how do you do this?

Also, once they're both installed, will I be able to read two disks at once. I know I won't be be able to burn two disks at once, because one is a combo drive, but I would like to be able to read two disks at once. Will it work like that?
-thanks in advance

Your pullin' my whatsit? Can't even recognise that photo let alone read two discs at a time.

No I mean can the computer read the two disks at once? and how do I set one as the slave and one as the master? They're still randomly opening and closing.

Wman said:

No I mean can the computer read the two disks at once? and how do I set one as the slave and one as the master? They're still randomly opening and closing.

Click to expand...

There are jumpers near the ribbon cable connector on both drives. They can be set to Master, Slave or Cable Select. You'll need to have a special cable to use Cable Select, so it's usually a safer bet to choose one as your Master and the other as your Slave. Both drives should have markings on them indicating the relative position of the jumper.

I see three two pronged connectors on the back of either drive. On the combo drive one is labelled CS, one SL and one MA, on the LG drive they are not labelled, but I assume they are the same three things and CS is cabel select, SL is slave and MA is master, however I dont see a loose cable other than ac or the ribbon. What am I looking for. Oh and the reason I posted the picture was because I heard something about a "jumper" cable while I was googling my problem and though I though the setting didn't involve hardware, I was not sure. As you can see, there is no jumper cable in either drive, anyways, what am I looking for?
-thx!

EDIT:
http://www.hardwarezone.com/img/data/articles/2004/1215/08-optical-jumper.jpg
oh now I see, that little thing is the jumper. I thought it was a cable. I guess I'll go set it. Which drive should I set to slave and which one shoudld I set to master. Oh and I do see now that they were both set to master (if master is the one on the left, because there is no label). I thought the jumper was just another type of input. I'll go fix this and telly ou guys what happens.

EDIT, yet again: the LG was actualy set to cable select and the combo drive to master. Could that have caused my problems? anyways, the LG DVD-R drive is now slave and the original combo drive it shipped with is master. I'll tell you what heppens.

Ok. everything works, but which one should I set to slave and which one to master? does it matter?
-thx for help guys!

Set the top drive, which should be the first on the IDE cable as master, and the second as slave. Now to open the second drive door, as you are using a FW800, hit control and the media eject key.

Alright. I did that. Everything works. Thanks! bye

Delighted you got it all worked out Wman. Remember if at first you don't succeed, throw it in the river!