Whats master vs slave?

[sdeyoreo]

Whats the difference between a master & slave? I have a CDROM as slave
and CDRW as master. My son says ITunes won't start if a CD is in the
CDROM, but works ok if a CD is the CDRW. Just wondering whats up. This
is a new build, ~ 1 week old Win XP Home, SP2. V600DAP mobo by JetWay,
Athalon XP+2200.

 

[John Weiss]

Whats the difference between a master & slave? I have a CDROM as slave
and CDRW as master. My son says ITunes won't start if a CD is in the
CDROM, but works ok if a CD is the CDRW. Just wondering whats up.

Probably that's the CD player iTunes was loaded from. You may be able to
change the default setting in the iTunes setup panel.

 

[sdeyoreo]

Probably that's the CD player iTunes was loaded from. You may be able to
change the default setting in the iTunes setup panel.

I think he dowloaded it from the web. Not that it matters, he just
needs to load the right CD drive, but you'ld hope that it would run no
matter what drive a CD is in.

 

[JAD]

Well in most master slave scenarios the master says jump and the slave
asks how high.


In this scenario however I believe your talking about 'auto insertion' not
starting ITUNES on/for one of the drives? This is because it may be shut off
via the device manager for that drive. ??????/

 

[sdeyoreo]

Well in most master slave scenarios the master says jump and the slave
asks how high.


In this scenario however I believe your talking about 'auto insertion' not
starting ITUNES on/for one of the drives?

Not sure. It's my kid's computer and his problem. I'll look into that.

This is because it may be shut off
via the device manager for that drive. ??????/

I'll look at that too.

Thanks for the ideas.

 

[T]

Whats the difference between a master & slave? I have a CDROM as slave
and CDRW as master. My son says ITunes won't start if a CD is in the
CDROM, but works ok if a CD is the CDRW. Just wondering whats up. This
is a new build, ~ 1 week old Win XP Home, SP2. V600DAP mobo by JetWay,
Athalon XP+2200.

It is a bad use of a description we continue to get stuck with.

Better terminology would be Primary, Secondary.

Other ways would be to call them Drive (or device) 0 & Drive 1, etc.

The IDE conventions use two devices per controller; 0 & 1. Most systems
put the reading devices on a different controller and the writing
devices on another, lets use the following two IDE channel, four device
system as an example:

Controller I
Primary - Hard Drive w/ OS on it.
Secondary - CD ROM drive

Controller II
Primary - CDRW and/or DVDR, etc.
Secondary - (Some other device like a ZIP drive or something.)

Now in this case you can have the CMOS set to boot from the CD ROM but
still be a secondary IDE designation, if you leave a boot CD in the CD
ROM it'll boot from there instead of the default HD.

I would hope we could drop Master/Slave from common usage, besides- it's
soooo last century.


TBerk

 

[JAD]

It is a bad use of a description we continue to get stuck with.

Better terminology would be Primary, Secondary.

that would confuse the terms for the ide channels

Other ways would be to call them Drive (or device) 0 & Drive 1, etc.

master and slave are printed on the drive reffering to the jumper settings.

 

[David Maynard]

that would confuse the terms for the ide channels

It also helps to realize those terms didn't just suddenly spring forth in
the modern context. They go back to a time when you could choose to boot
from either floppy or 'the hard drive', which had to be the first device on
what was probably the only IDE port in the machine. Booting was generally
not supported from the 'second' device nor a 'CD-ROM'.

The terminology "master" and "slave" doesn't seem so strange when you
consider that the 'second' device was useless until one booted an OS from
'the hard drive': a kind of 'master device', if you will.

With modern systems allowing boot from a myriad of devices in all manner of
locations and configurations the terminology becomes obtuse but it remains
from the historical context.

 

[T]

It also helps to realize those terms didn't just suddenly spring forth
in the modern context.

I've been doing this stuff more than two decades. My point is, things
change and this is one thing that could be changed.

They go back to a time when you could choose to
boot from either floppy or 'the hard drive', which had to be the first
device on what was probably the only IDE port in the machine. Booting
was generally not supported from the 'second' device nor a 'CD-ROM'.

Ah, the good old days. :])

The terminology "master" and "slave" doesn't seem so strange when you
consider that the 'second' device was useless until one booted an OS
from 'the hard drive': a kind of 'master device', if you will.

With modern systems allowing boot from a myriad of devices in all manner
of locations and configurations the terminology becomes obtuse but it
remains from the historical context.

Still, the use of Master/Slave could be dropped, if the manufactures
choose to do so.

Primary/Secondary fits just as well, 'but M/S is printed on the
device....'. C'mon.


TBerk

 

[David Maynard]

I've been doing this stuff more than two decades. My point is, things
change and this is one thing that could be changed.

Changing terminology when the devices are still the same would just add
unnecessary confusion.

They go back to a time when you could choose to boot from either
floppy or 'the hard drive', which had to be the first device on what
was probably the only IDE port in the machine. Booting was generally
not supported from the 'second' device nor a 'CD-ROM'.

Ah, the good old days. :])

The terminology "master" and "slave" doesn't seem so strange when you
consider that the 'second' device was useless until one booted an OS
from 'the hard drive': a kind of 'master device', if you will.

With modern systems allowing boot from a myriad of devices in all
manner of locations and configurations the terminology becomes obtuse
but it remains from the historical context.

Still, the use of Master/Slave could be dropped, if the manufactures
choose to do so.

Primary/Secondary fits just as well, 'but M/S is printed on the
device....'. C'mon.

There is no jumper for which IDE channel, "primary" or "secondary," it goes
on. Or do you plan on changing that terminology too?

 

[Al Smith]

Whats the difference between a master & slave? I have a CDROM as slave

and CDRW as master. My son says ITunes won't start if a CD is in the
CDROM, but works ok if a CD is the CDRW. Just wondering whats up. This
is a new build, ~ 1 week old Win XP Home, SP2. V600DAP mobo by JetWay,
Athalon XP+2200.

I want to clear up this confusion once and for all. A master is
like Victor von Frankenstein. A slave is like Igor. In the usual
course of events, Igor will always do what Victor says, but when
Victor is fighting his monster with a burning torch, Igor will
sometimes sneak upstairs and attempt to rape Victor's girlfriend.
This can result in data loss, so it's something to watch out for.