Almost embarassed to ask... IDE master/slave

I am embarassed to ask this <hangs head in shame>

In middle of building my machine..(MSI K8N Neo2 m/b)

I have a SATA drive which will be my primary boot drive.

**I then want to connect another HD to IDE1 for primarily storage... This should be connected as MASTER right?

** I also have a dvd-rw and cdr-rw. I was going to connect these both to the IDE2 channel - but which one should be MASTER and which one SLAVE? Bearing in mind I need to be able to write with them both reliably?

Please help me configure this!

Cheers
:confused:

Q1: Yes, this should be master.

Q2: It doesn't matter at all as far as I know. Since I got my CDRW before my DVDRW, the DVDRW is the slave. It still works absolutely fine. Bear in mind that copying 'on the fly' won't be a great idea if both drives are on the same channel, since IDE can't read and write at the same time. That's the only problem you're likely to encounter though.

Rich :¬)

The one furthest away should be set as master and the middle slave.

You guys rock! Thanks for the answer so far..

So would I be better then putting the dvdrw as a master on with the seconadry HD (slave), and leaving the cdrw on its' own chanel as a master?

**Alternatively, should I just leave these 3 drives on cable select?

Thx

Yes, if you can put the DVDRW and CRW on entirely separate IDE channels that would be better - in which case they can both be "masters" and should be connected to the end connecter on your IDE cables (as opposed to the one in the middle) - although this will of course add to the nest of cables in your case :-S

Sorry didn't read your last post properly - DON'T put a HDD and an optical drive on the same IDE channel - the devices on one IDE channel adopt the LOWEST speed of the components - you will therefore get very low performance from the HDD because it will have to run at ATA33 (I think I'm right here) which is the speed optical drives run at. The HDD is probably capable of running at ATA133 so you're taking a very large performance hit. Always keep HDDs on a separate channel to optical devices...

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Originally Posted by vk2003

So would I be better then putting the dvdrw as a master on with the seconadry HD (slave), and leaving the cdrw on its' own chanel as a master?

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That might work better, it depends what kind of burning you do most of. People are wary of putting HDs and optical drives on the same IDE channel in case the optical drive slows the hard disk down. Optical drives are usually only ATA-33 devices, whereas HDs are usually ATA-100 or ATA-133 nowadays. In theory though you can run UDMA devices at different speeds on the same channel. You could verify this is working in Windows once it's all set up. That setup would be better for copying between the two optical drives 'on the fly', but it would be worse if you were burning data onto the optical drive from the hard disk on the same channel- you'd again have the problem that you can't read and write at the same time. Unless you do a lot of on the fly disc copying, I'd be more inclined to put both optical drives on the same channel.

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**Alternatively, should I just leave these 3 drives on cable select?

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I wouldn't use cable select; it may work, but since it takes about 30s to swap the jumpers and set the drives up properly, why bother? You still have to decide which drives you want to be on which channel, and which is slave and master, it's just that cable select does the final setup for you. As previously stated, the master drive goes on the end of the cable, the slave in the middle.

Everything else being equal, there's no difference in performance between the master and slave drive, it's not like the master gets priority or anything.

Rich :¬)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by spursskin

Sorry didn't read your last post properly - DON'T put a HDD and an optical drive on the same IDE channel - the devices on one IDE channel adopt the LOWEST speed of the components - you will therefore get very low performance from the HDD because it will have to run at ATA33 (I think I'm right here) which is the speed optical drives run at. The HDD is probably capable of running at ATA133 so you're taking a very large performance hit. Always keep HDDs on a separate channel to optical devices...

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I don't think this is the case with UDMA. I'm pretty sure they can run different speeds. Never tried it though admittedly, I would give it a go to verify it myself but my hard disk is clinging on for dear life and I mess with it as little as possible so as to avoid giving it an excuse to die......:eek:

Rich :¬)

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Originally Posted by Rave

I don't think this is the case with UDMA. I'm pretty sure they can run different speeds. Never tried it though admittedly, I would give it a go to verify it myself but my hard disk is clinging on for dear life and I mess with it as little as possible so as to avoid giving it an excuse to die......:eek:

Rich :¬)

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i heard it was the case, that say u have a 133 hdd and a 33 cd drive, the hdd will run at 33mb


not sure, so best to be safe than sorry, HDD as master on IDE1, then the 2 optical drives either way round on IDE2, id put the DVDRW as master, why? i duno :p i just wud cos im silly like that


i always forget which way master of slave parts of the cable are tho :( gah im useless with them..

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Originally Posted by Swafeman

i heard it was the case, that say u have a 133 hdd and a 33 cd drive, the hdd will run at 33mb

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Not true, thanks to Independent Device Timing:

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/id...ormance-c.html

However, that page goes on to say that running ATAPI devices on the same channel as a hard disk isn't a good idea, but I'd guess that that's just because an ATAPI device is likely to tie the IDE channel up for long periods every now and then, and in that situation you can't access the hard disk until it's finished.

Rich :¬)

Right...

So I have put both optical drives on the same channel, and left the HDD on its own.

But my machine starts up very unreliably.

Back to the drwaing board - time to unplug everything, and start by putting them back one at a time...

:-(

Thanks again everyone

good man...try different things until it works :)

Or go SCSI ;)

(I was teasing there.. SATA and EIDE are fine)

(I'm just biased)

Did you set up the master/slave jumpers on the drives correctly after all that? Putting one drive back at a time is the way to go though. How do you mean it starts up unreliably? Does it detect the drives correctly and then fail to load windows? Or does it just fail to detect all the drives?

Rich :¬)

BENT PIN ALERT......


BENT PIN ALERT

BENT PIN ALERT

sorry....its jus that I spent a WEEK witha single pin in my ribbon connector bent....and I neverknew :(

HORRIBLE FLASH BACK THERE!!!!!

CHECK THE PINS

Argh good call:shocked2:. Keyed connectors take away the potential for plugging the drives in the wrong way round, but can't stop you bending pins....

Rich :¬)

I have my ATAPI LS120 on the same ide as the hdd it doesnt make a difference unless writing to the thing which i use maybe twice a year.

I always have mine on Cable Select now as it saves time messing with pissy little jumpers.