Master/Slave positions on IDE cable

[Seabat]

Howdy, I come before you, the guru's of computer knowledge, with a
perplexing (to me) problem. I offer up a young virgin for sacrifice
to appease you gods for your knowledge and time. Wellllll, she ain't
really a virgin and if you get right down to it she ain't that young
either........but it's all I got to offer!! <smile>


For about the last ten years or so I have been under the impression
that the master unit was located on the end of the IDE cable and the
slave was located on the connection that is partway down the cable,
right?

I just bought a Lite-On burner and while I was installing it I peeked
at the instructions <grin> and they are telling me just the opposite!
The slave goes on the end of the cable and the master is on the midway
connection.

I went ahead and hooked it up the way I have always been doing (of
course!) and it seems to work alright. But I was wondering if I am
taking a performance hit or doing harm to my new unit by hooking it up
contrary to what the diagram shows?

Thanks for any info

 

[Snøøp¥]

As long as it's working fine, with no performance issues on both Drive and
CD Rom, then I don't think I would really worry about it, some motherboards
will not recognise a master/slave drive if the slave is placed at the end
connector, I have an Asus P4C800 Deluxe board, and that chappie is no way
happy if I place the slave at the end connector, bios will not recognise
either master or slave.

As a rule of thumb now, I always put slave on middle connector, and master
at end, never had any problems with any board, doing it that way.!!

--




Snøøp¥

Cut ¬THE CR@P¬ To Reply



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[Sal Monella]

Howdy, I come before you, the guru's of computer knowledge, with a
perplexing (to me) problem. I offer up a young virgin for sacrifice
to appease you gods for your knowledge and time. Wellllll, she ain't
really a virgin and if you get right down to it she ain't that young
either........but it's all I got to offer!! <smile>

For about the last ten years or so I have been under the impression
that the master unit was located on the end of the IDE cable and the
slave was located on the connection that is partway down the cable,
right?

I just bought a Lite-On burner and while I was installing it I peeked
at the instructions <grin> and they are telling me just the opposite!
The slave goes on the end of the cable and the master is on the midway
connection.

I went ahead and hooked it up the way I have always been doing (of
course!) and it seems to work alright. But I was wondering if I am
taking a performance hit or doing harm to my new unit by hooking it up
contrary to what the diagram shows?

Thanks for any info

It doesn't matter as long as you have the jumpers on the drives set the
way you want them.

 

[BP]

It doesn't matter as long as you have the jumpers on the drives set the
way you want them.

Hey Sal- I seem to recall that it doesn't matter if you're using a 40 pin -
80 wire cable (and the jumpers are set correctly) and it does if you are
using a 40 pin - 40 wire cable. Correct?

 

[S.Heenan]

that the master unit was located on the end of the IDE cable and the
slave was located on the connection that is partway down the cable,
right?

|MB|==============|S|=====|M|


MB motherboard
S Slave
M Master

Drives to be jumpered according to their position on the cable.

I just bought a Lite-On burner and while I was installing it I peeked
at the instructions <grin> and they are telling me just the opposite!
The slave goes on the end of the cable and the master is on the midway
connection.

Something was lost in translation me thinks.


Windows XP and perhaps Win2K Pro will default to a lower transfer mode as
detailed here:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hwdev/tech/storage/ide-dma.mspx

I've found jumpering drives as you have been doing often prevents the
"downshifting" to PIO or Multi-word DMA mode2. The Intel 810E/815/E and the
VIA Apollo Pro+ chipsets do this with great consistency. The KT133 and later
K7 chipsets never have produced this behavior under WinXP, to my knowledge.

 

[Frank Fussenegger]

Look at what information your BIOS gives you about what it detected. You
should be able to tell which drive is the Master.

 

[Sal Monella]

Hey Sal- I seem to recall that it doesn't matter if you're using a 40 pin -
80 wire cable (and the jumpers are set correctly) and it does if you are
using a 40 pin - 40 wire cable. Correct?

It still shouldn't matter. The only problem I've ever seen is when a
single IDE device is connected to the middle with the end left loose.
And that's probably hit or miss.

 

[jpsga]

I don't any thing to add but wanted to stay in the running for the
non-virgin virgin.

Jim

 

[Shep©]

Howdy, I come before you, the guru's of computer knowledge, with a
perplexing (to me) problem. I offer up a young virgin for sacrifice
to appease you gods for your knowledge and time. Wellllll, she ain't
really a virgin and if you get right down to it she ain't that young
either........but it's all I got to offer!! <smile>


For about the last ten years or so I have been under the impression
that the master unit was located on the end of the IDE cable and the
slave was located on the connection that is partway down the cable,
right?

I just bought a Lite-On burner and while I was installing it I peeked
at the instructions <grin> and they are telling me just the opposite!
The slave goes on the end of the cable and the master is on the midway
connection.

I went ahead and hooked it up the way I have always been doing (of
course!) and it seems to work alright. But I was wondering if I am
taking a performance hit or doing harm to my new unit by hooking it up
contrary to what the diagram shows?

Thanks for any info

Try here,
http://www.geocities.com/sheppola/hard.html
http://www.geocities.com/sheppola/cdsetup.html

HTH



--
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[R. Asby Dragon]

"Sal Monella" funked up with this bit of idiocy:

It doesn't matter as long as you have the jumpers on the drives set the
way you want them.

Fsckin idiot...
(I'm guessing Sal's built 2 or 3 boxes and been"lucky"!!)

I'll admit that it's far better now than it was 15-20 years ago on
"IDE compatibility" ; but that problem still persists.

 

[Paul Hill]

Windows XP and perhaps Win2K Pro will default to a lower transfer mode as
detailed here:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hwdev/tech/storage/ide-dma.mspx

"For ATAPI devices, except DVD and CD-R/RWW drives. Windows XP enables
PIO by default on ATAPI tape drives, CD-ROM drives, and ATAPI removable
drives such as magneto-optical (MO) drives. The user can, however,
enable DMA on an ATAPI device through Device Manager, as described at
the end of this article.

Windows XP enables DMA by default on ATAPI DVD and CD-RW/CD-R drives. "

I've noticed that the same is true for Windows 2000 also. Anyone know
why? It seems to make no difference here (though I suspect PIO would
use a great deal more CPU power).

 

[Sal Monella]

"Sal Monella" funked up with this bit of idiocy:


Fsckin idiot...
(I'm guessing Sal's built 2 or 3 boxes and been"lucky"!!)

I'll admit that it's far better now than it was 15-20 years ago on
"IDE compatibility" ; but that problem still persists.

Maybe you could find someone to show you how to set jumpers and plug in
the devices since you have so much trouble with it. LMAO

 

[Johnson]

Howdy, I come before you, the guru's of computer knowledge, with a
perplexing (to me) problem. I offer up a young virgin for sacrifice
to appease you gods for your knowledge and time. Wellllll, she ain't
really a virgin and if you get right down to it she ain't that young
either........but it's all I got to offer!! <smile>

For about the last ten years or so I have been under the impression
that the master unit was located on the end of the IDE cable and the
slave was located on the connection that is partway down the cable,
right?

I just bought a Lite-On burner and while I was installing it I peeked
at the instructions <grin> and they are telling me just the opposite!
The slave goes on the end of the cable and the master is on the midway
connection.

I went ahead and hooked it up the way I have always been doing (of
course!) and it seems to work alright. But I was wondering if I am
taking a performance hit or doing harm to my new unit by hooking it up
contrary to what the diagram shows?

Google "cable select." It's a lesser known method to hook up IDE drives
versus the straight through bus connector. It so happens the first
CS drive is the master; the last drive the slave. Matches your manual's
diagram right?

The manual may be:
Describing cable select
Illustrating the config in the most global way possible (both for CS and
straight through cables)
Arbitrarily tossing a coin.

Drive order does NOT matter on a normal straight through IDE bus cable.
Anyone who says differently needs to go back to vocational school and
bitch slap the instructor until the moron takes a basic electronics
course.

The smartest advice I read suggested not pigtailing the connector
(leaving the last connector dangling). This causes reflections in SCSI
busses. I've never heard of it on IDE, but who knows.

Otherwise ignore 90% of the misinformation here.

One final note, you can see a performance gain by strategically keeping
your fastest, most accessed drives on different channels. But that's not
quite what you asked.

 

[Sal Monella]

Johnson wrote:
-snip-

Drive order does NOT matter on a normal straight through IDE bus cable.
Anyone who says differently needs to go back to vocational school and
bitch slap the instructor until the moron takes a basic electronics
course.

-snip


It doesn't matter on CS cables either if you jumper master/slave and
don't use CS. I think the words "master" and "slave" are what confuse
most people. It's not a very accurate description of the setup.

 

[Sal Monella]

"Sal Monella" funked up with this bit of idiocy:


Fsckin idiot...
(I'm guessing Sal's built 2 or 3 boxes and been"lucky"!!)

You guessed wrong dumb ass. Maybe you should learn a few things about
computers before you go calling someone else a ****ing idiot, ass hole.

I'll admit that it's far better now than it was 15-20 years ago on
"IDE compatibility" ; but that problem still persists.

And what problem would that be moron? Please explain troll.

Since you obviously don't know jack about configuring a PC here are a
few links with relevant text quoted:

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/ata_cable_select.html
"Both Cable Select and Master/Slave settings are made using jumpers on
the options jumper block of the device (typical Seagate ATA drive
shown). Cable Select settings (pins 5-6) require specific placement of
the master and slave device on the cable according to which type of
cable is used. Alternately, devices using Master/Slave settings (pins
7-8) can be placed in either the middle or end cable connector of the
cable."

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confJumpering-c.html
"Note that in terms of configuration, it makes no difference which
connector on the standard IDE cable is used in a standard IDE setup,
because it is the jumpers that control master and slave, not the cable."

http://www.pcmech.com/article.php?id=282&p=17
"If you are adding a second drive, simply choose a connector on the same
ribbon cable that is not used. Most ribbon cables come with two
connectors: one on the end and one mid-way. In this case, it doesn't
matter which plug goes in what drive. The computer looks at the
master/slave jumpers to see which one is “C”. Make sure to connect the
other end of the ribbon cable to the primary IDE connector on the
motherboard."

There are plenty of sites to help you understand PC's if you know how to
use a search engine like google. You did manage to find your way on to
usenet so I'm guessing you can manage that much. You might want to find
another hobby though if you can't understand concepts as simple as IDE.

 

[Last Boy Scout]

Some new motherboards prefer the cable select setting. My A7N8X
motherboard would not boot with the Master jumper selected. However,
I switched it to cable select and it was fine.

The position on the cable can be important as well. One position is
for master and one is for slave.

 

[Sal Monella]

Some new motherboards prefer the cable select setting. My A7N8X
motherboard would not boot with the Master jumper selected. However,
I switched it to cable select and it was fine.

The position on the cable can be important as well. One position is
for master and one is for slave.

Some drives have to be jumpered single and not master if it's the only
drive on the channel. Did you check for a single setting. Most WD drives
I've seen are like this. The position on the cable does not matter one
bit unless you are using cable select.