Master and Slave drives....

[tvradict]

I'm fitting a Second hard disk into my Dell Dimension desktop pc.

I was always told that when fitting Master and Slave drives, the Master should be on the connector furthest away from the Motherboard and the Slave would then go on the connector in between.

However, I've just been finding out the jumper settings for the Drive that came with the PC which is a Western Digital Caviar WD800 and there was an option for Cable Select. This option also appeared on the drive I'm putting in, a 30GB IBM Deskstar.

Does this mean, that If I jumper the drives as Master and Slave it doesn't matter which connecter they go to on the IDE lead?

TIA
Stuart.

[pdV6]

If you use the "cable select" setting on both drives, then the position on the IDE cable is what determines which is master and which is slave (i.e. the one at the far end is master).

Forcing the issue with the master and slave settings means they can go anywhere on the cable, but there's no harm in keeping them in the "right" position and no reason not to seeing as the drives are a standard fit, so if they'll fit in your box one way round, they'll also fit the other way.

[Plotloss]

yep, as long as one is set to master and one to slave it doesnt matter.

[tvradict]

Cheers

[ErnestM]

You must have the 80 wire ide cable as well for CS to work IIRC.

ErnestM

[mattley]

You need Gods own luck for CS for work IIRC.





I can't see that the cable making a difference as both are only 40 pin connectors. On 80 pin cables every other strand is earthed which reduces cross talk, but the pin outs are the same.