Quick IDE Cable question

[RicKuRuKuS]

Hey guys, I am about to install another hard drive into my system and I am hookign all my devices up through IDE. Basically here is my setup. My DVD-Rom drive is a slave to my DVD-RW drive which is a master. My 160GB Hard drive is a master to my 80GB hard drive... now how do I tell which part of the IDE cable is a slave or master?

-warsaw

 

[Ice Czar]

Master is always at the end of the cable
never attach a slave without a master
Master is Black
Slave Grey
Mobo Blue
any HDD that is attached should be on an 80 wire cable

also review
Partitioning and Optimizing Tutorial > Physical Configuration

and
Corruption 101 > Cables (with particular note of crappy cables, and routing)
SATA Cautions > Integrity Testing (applicable to PATA & SATA)

 

[RicKuRuKuS]

alright well it seems that the motherboard recognized all the connections which is good, i am now installing windows xp on the 160gb and formatting it... how shuold i format the 80gb? the 80gb has windows xp on it, but i just want the 80gb to become a storage drive... i also have some stuff on the 80gb that i dont want to get lost... EDIT: The windows setup cannot access the 160gb hard drive for some reason but it cant access the 80gb.. man i am so confused! i need this 160gb to work!

-warsaw

 

[Ice Czar]

disconnect the 80GB
Windows will detected the previous install and if you proceed that way youll end up with a dual boot (which you dont want)

 

[BlindedByScience]

If you are using "cable select" to determine master / slave on your drives, I strongly recommend you manually select the master / slave status with the jumper on the back of the drive. It's never failed to work better for me that way, than to depend on "CS".

FWIW - B.B.S.

 

[stumpy]

While we're on the subject, is there such a thing as triple IDE cables, and will most motherboards support it?

 

[BlindedByScience]

While we're on the subject, is there such a thing as triple IDE cables, and will most motherboards support it?

Nope - two devices per channel; a master and a slave.

end < /threadcrap >

B.B.S.

 

[Ice Czar]

for that youd need to go SCSI then your good upto 16 drives per channel

in IDE there is always a controller card, and it can have multiple channels with 2 devices per channel
though it far more common to just attach a single device to each channel
most straight IDE controllers cards only have 2 channels, but IDE RAID cards can have upto 12 channels

 

[RicKuRuKuS]

alright ice i will try doing what you told me to... i will disconnect my 80 and format the 160 by itself.. if that dont work im coming back here

-warsaw