On 3 Sep 2005 at 21:25, Edward A, Black, Sr. wrote:

> I am working on buiding a computer.  I have 2 harddrives: a Maxtor and a
> Seagate.   Both are IDE.   Can they work with each other or do I need to
> have 2 Maxtor or 2 Seagate harddrives?

  Depending on the age of the drives, you *might* need to put them on
different controller interfaces (all but the oldest systems you're likely to
have will include two, and if necessary you could add an expansion card).

  It was true at one time that some combinations of manufacturers had
trouble working together.  There are jumpers to configure each drive, and I
seem to recall that some manufacturers used two different jumper settings
for "only drive on this channel" and :master drive with a slave on this
channel", whereas others used a single setting for both of these cases.
  There has been some consolidation of the disk drive industry, and many
older models have been retired.  I've been using mostly Maxtor's lately, but
I've just bought a Seagate and intend to put it in a machine that also has a
Maxtor.  I'm planning to put them on different channels with a DVD-ROM drive
as slave on one and a DVD burner on the other, but I expect they'd get along
fine on the same channel if I chose to instal them that way.

David Gillett

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