Yes, they can be on the same cable and often are.
Master/Slave just tells the computer how to differentiate two drives on the
same ribbon  cable.
Some external cases have limits on the size drive they will accept. Try it
and see what happens.
I've never heard of a program that cared which drive is Master, but I don't
use Roxio.

On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 2:31 PM, g.Computer9f <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>  I don't know a lot about hardware, but I'm trying to learn.  I have ended
> up with three IDE harddrives and an IDE DVD Drive.  (I should have bought a
> SATA instead of an IDE, but it's too late now. (my funny noise drive fixed
> itself apparently) Basically, I want to know if an IDE DVD writer and an IDE
> harddrive can be cabled together on one cable.  If so, can the DVD writer be
> cabled as the master (Roxio doesn't like it if the DVD writer is not the
> master)?  I don't really know what the master/slave designations mean.
>
> If this is not possible, I have an external case that I used with an 80GB
> Maxtor IDE drive (which I gave away).  Is there any restriction on what goes
> into external cases?  Will my 120GB Seagate work okay in this case?
>
> AnnaSummers
>

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