On 2 Oct 99, at 16:52, Dave Gillett <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> On 2 Oct 99, at 2:49, [log in to unmask] wrote:
....
> > The question is: when attaching only one device to a channel, is it
> > necessary to attach it to the primary (or master) connection? Or is
> > it possible to leave that empty and attach one device (such as a
> > CD-ROM drive) to the secondary (slave) connection only?
>
>   Generally, whether a device is master or slave on its channel
> depends on how its jumpers are set -- the connectors on the cable are
> identical.
>   [There is an exception:  If your cable has a "twist" between two of
> the connectors, you can jumper both devices as "cable select".]
>
>   I've seen enough machines with CD-ROM drives jumpered as "slave"
> without a master device on the channel to know that this
> configuration works, but I suspect that hard drives may not be so
> accomodating.  [(1) Hard drives can be auto-detected in CMOS setup;
> other kinds of devices generally are not.  (2) Some brands/models of
> hard drives have difficulty when configured as slave to some other
> brand/model as master; this implies that a slave hard drive may rely
> on the master's controller for some functions.]  I have not actually
> performed this experiment.

Just one thing to add - on some motherboards, you must put the boot
hard disk on IDE1. (At least, this is the case with my MSI 6163).

Uzi

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