dual drive

[Corbett Battaile]

I have to admit, I WAS pretty sure until I read your post and decided to do 
some digging. It didn't take me long to find the information I was looking 
for, e.g.:
	<http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20020806/>
And, of course, you're right - according to the information I found, the 
placement of IDE drives doesn't matter as long as they're explicitly 
jumpered as Master and Slave. And all these years, I've been living a lie! 
:)  (Albeit a safe and harmless lie.)

On the other hand, it is apparently recommended that a lone (Master) drive 
be placed at the end of the cable to avoid signal problems. Maybe that's 
where I got the wrong impression. And some IDE cables explicitly mark the 
two connectors as Master and Slave, but that's probably for the very same 
reason.

As the saying goes, you learn something new every day. Thanks for the 
correction!


--On 11/28/04 2:51 PM -0400 Jim Bauer wrote:
>
> I have never heard of an IDE requirement that says that the master must
> always  (i.e. even when using explicit master/slave jumpers) be the unit
> furtherest  away from the motherboard.  No one else that I checked with,
> seems to have  heard that either.  I know you this this wasn't
> authoritative, but I still  have to ask.  Are you sure?
>
> On Thursday 25 November 2004 11:28, Corbett Battaile wrote:
>>
>> Let me start by saying that my answer is in no way authoritative, and
>> you might know all this already, so please forgive the self-indulgent
>> IDE tutorial if so. Plus, I don't have a copy of the YDL 3.0.1 guide,
>> and my 4.0 guide is at work. (Today's a holiday for most folks here in
>> the "good" "old" US of A.)
>>
>> But I suspect that the confusion stems from how one defines "first" and
>> "second" on an IDE chain, and also whether one jumpers Masters and
>> Slaves explicitly or uses Cable Select to define the Master and Slave.
>> The important point, it appears, is that YDL should reside on the
>> Master drive.
>>
>> So, that means that YDL should be installed on the drive FARTHEST from
>> the motherboard (the Master), and MacOS on the drive CLOSEST to the
>> motherboard (the Slave). Like this:
>>
> [drawing snipped]
>>
>> Now, regarding jumpers, there are two ways to do it. One, you could
>> jumper both drives with the Cable Select (CS) option. (Assuming your
>> drives support it - most newer ones do.) That sets the drive farthest
>> from the motherboard as the master, and the one closest as the slave.
>> Or, you could explicitly jumper the farthest drive as Master and the
>> closest as Slave. (Some drives have different jumper settings for
>> "Master with no Slave" and "Master with Slave present," so look out for
>> that.) Regardless, the Master always has to be at the end of the cable
>> (farthest from the motherboard) and the Slave at the middle of the
>> cable.


--
Corbett Battaile