IDE Question

[JohnSearle]

I have a dumb question regarding IDE ports...

Can you have a IDE Optical Drive, as well as a HD hooked up to the same port on the motherboard?

I tried it on my last system, but it ended up only detecting one or the other. In the end I just opted to toss a SATA HD in, and then the hook the Optical up solely to the motherboard.

Thanks,

- John

 

[warlock]

Yes you can.

You have to remember that IDE drives have master/slave settings. So if you have both drives set to master or slave, the machine will only detect one of them, and it will be flaky as hell.

Check the jumpers on the back of your drives and set them accordingly.

 

[engiNURD]

While you can, it isn't recommended simply because it slows down performance. I used the IDE optical drive and threw the IDE HDD into an external USB2.0 enclosure instead.

 

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Keep in mind an IDE channel will scale to the speed of the slowest device attached to it. Most optical drives are ATA33/66 while HDDs are ATA100/133. You can do it but you'll take a serious performance hit.

 

[JohnSearle]

thanks guys.