A really noob question.....need help

[fighterpilot]

I've just bought a new motherboard, a dvd-rw and a SATA hard drive. Should I install the dvd-rw on the primary ide and the hard drive on the primary SATA connector or something? I'm confused, could someone please clear this up with me? I am a noob. What's all this about master and slave? Does it refer to the hard drive only? I heard something about jumpers as well. What are they?

 

[Methost]

I've just bought a new motherboard, a dvd-rw and a SATA hard drive. Should I install the dvd-rw on the primary ide and the hard drive on the primary SATA connector or something? I'm confused, could someone please clear this up with me? I am a noob. What's all this about master and slave? Does it refer to the hard drive only? I heard something about jumpers as well. What are they?

Well there should be a chart on the drives showing you where to put the jumpers to get them in the "Master" Postion. Or if you just have one HDD and one DVD, you can leave them in the "cable select position". Yes I would plug each in to the primary slots on the motherboard. The PC should find them no matter where you plug them in though. If you ever add secondary drives, then you new drives will need to be set as "slave" with the jumpers. Hope that helps some.

 

[fighterpilot]

Well there should be a chart on the drives showing you where to put the jumpers to get them in the "Master" Postion. Or if you just have one HDD and one DVD, you can leave them in the "cable select position". Yes I would plug each in to the primary slots on the motherboard. The PC should find them no matter where you plug them in though. If you ever add secondary drives, then you new drives will need to be set as "slave" with the jumpers. Hope that helps some.

I think I understand. Just one more thing. Do I have to set jumpers on both dvd drives and hard drives? So both should be "master" in the primary connector.

 

[richman1068]

Yes, the SATA hard drive will connect to the SATA connection on your motherboard. Now, if you have more than one optical drive, there will be a master and a slave, just like with hard drives. If you only have the one DVD-RW drive, make sure that the jumper settings on the back of the DVD drive are set to master. Your installation manual should tell you how to do this. (A jumper looks like a small rectangular piece of plastic that fits over two prongs, creating a circuit that tells the computer to do something.) Then plug the IDE (thin, wide, grey cable) to the back of the DVD drive and, depending on the motherboard, to the primary IDE. As long as everything is hooked up correctly, you should be able to just plug everything back in and power up and go.

Good luck!
richman1068

 

[m0neto]

If you're trying to connect both the DVD drive and the Hard drive on the same cable, one should be set as master and the other as slave. It doesn't matter how you plug the cables in, as long as one _end_ connects to the motherboard.

 

[Dan Penny]

"If you're trying to connect both the DVD drive and the Hard drive on the same cable, one should be set as master and the other as slave."

Yes, but in this case, he's utilizing the SATA connection for the hard disk, and an IDE connection for the DVD-RW. (Which, as I understand it, SATA is quicker, and if the motherboard supports booting to SATA drives, that's the way to go. The DVD-RW can be placed as the primary or master drive on a less efficient IDE channel.)

 

[loserOlimbs]

SATA is faster, as far as what works, you can plug in any IDE in either slot on the MOBO or plug both in on the same ribbon. As far as performance goes... keep them seperate if you only have two IDE devices, if you ever have more than you need to figure out how you transfer the majority of data and connect all your drives according to that.