How do I properly configure my hardware

[Guest]

I have one HD and a CD/DVD reader. I also have a CD-RW and a DVD-RW.

I am not sure which is set to Master and which is set to Slave or Cable
Select.

If someone would be kind enough to tell me the proper way of configuring my
installed hardware, I will dismantel and re-assemble my computer again.

It is not a store bought computer but one that I have assembled. thank you
for the knowledge.

 

[R. McCarty]

The days of needing/requiring multiple Optical drives in a desktop
PC are mostly gone. Since you have a DVD-RW I'd just use it as
your only optical drive. Assuming your technology is PATA (wide,
flat cables) you can assign each device as Master on it's own IDE
channel ( Primary/Secondary ). Using a single drive can still copy
disks it just takes a little longer to do the Read/Copy operation.

 

[Dave B.]

There really is no need for all those drives, your DVD burner likely also
burns cd-r, I would loose the cdrw drive and just keep the dvd burner and
the dvd rom.
Set the hard drive as master on the primary IDE channel, the DVD drives as
master/slave on the secondary channel.

 

[HeyBub]

I have one HD and a CD/DVD reader. I also have a CD-RW and a DVD-RW.

I am not sure which is set to Master and which is set to Slave or
Cable Select.

If someone would be kind enough to tell me the proper way of
configuring my installed hardware, I will dismantel and re-assemble
my computer again.

It is not a store bought computer but one that I have assembled.
thank you for the knowledge.

The most-used device should be a "master" (usually your hard drive) on one
IDE channel. Your least used optical device should be the "slave" on that
same channel.

Likewise for the other IDE channel.

"Master" and "slave" are set via shorting blocks next to the power and data
plugs on the drives.

Forget about "cable select," it is virtually unused in the universe of
normal folk. (The cable would be split and some of the wires flipped - if
your data cable is uniformly flat, it's not a "cable select" cable.)

As an aside, there was a movement not long back to change the designations
of "master" and "slave" to "primary and secondary" or "zero and one" or
"husband and wife" or some other politically-correct designations.

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

Make whichever device you are going to use most the Master on the Secondary
channel, make the other one the Slave on that same channel. Most
importantly, if you are going to use one in a direct-write mode (where the
CD or DVD disk is constantly available and you can simply drag and drop to
automatically write the files, without having to stop and tell it to write),
then make that one Master.